unspeakable
by pauciloquy
Summary: Knockout AU - Preview: "He's right you know," Castle murmurs softly, "some things would be a mistake in any life, in each place and forever."
1. Chapter 1

_A/N - This story was originally posted as 'Battle Scars' but remained incomplete and was removed for some time due to contractual obligations I was under at the time. I am now released from that employment contract and am extremely excited to be back in this community as a writer. A lot of the story was lost, so I shall post it incrementally as I am able to piece it back together whilst working on the remainder of the story. Though I have numerous snippets of other story ideas already jotted down, I hated having to let this story drop, particularly after it initially garnered such kind and insightful support. I apologise to those who asked after the story and hope that you are able to follow along anew. T_ _hank you._

* * *

"Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate."

Her focus blurs, everything disjointed as she hovers in the disconnect, the phantom breath of his words sweeping down her neck. The crisp edge of reality flickers, its temperamental existence unravelling in ephemeral lapses between blue and red. She turns and turns back, sways, dazed. Lanie crashes into her and knocks her away.

She catches a shock of Alexis's hair and she goes to reach for her but Ryan is there, pressing the girl's shoulder and she's gone. Everyone is moving. Going. "Beckett!" Sound comes muffled and distant as Esposito shoves at her, rough and impatient. She stumbles and his palm pushes hard against her spine. "Go, go," he yells, as the doors shutter him out.

The space is too small and Lanie keeps pushing, feet knocking into Kate's and shoving her on. Lanie twists over her shoulder and her ordinarily soft mouth scrunches up, revealing something frightful and vicious. "Move, Kate, move!" she hisses.

"Sorry," Kate wheezes and shuffles back. She presses herself away, awfully aware of her size, the clumsiness of her too tall, uncompromising body. Her shoulder blades flatten against the back of the driver's seat as she focuses on making herself small, giving them space. "I'm so sorry," she whispers, because it's all that's left.

They tip roughly into a ditch in the road and everything lurches forward. Kate's knees buckle and her body skitters down beside the stretcher with a sickening crack. "God, I'm so sorry," she repeats. The warmth of his blood leaches up through her dress blues and a sob claws its way through her chest as she bends forward to press a desperate plea into his hair, "please stay."

"Beckett!" Lanie snaps.

Kate raises her head and realises the paramedic is rushing on, barking questions at her that she's unfairly surprised to find she answers quite instinctively. "Codeine," she says, "He's allergic to codeine, and he had a stomach ulcer about ten years ago."

Blood. There's too much blood, she knows. Lanie is frantic, body surging up and into him and the EMT's shouting, pushing her away. Lanie knocks her hands away and his body jerks and crashes, electricity surging through him. It's only a second and they are all back on him. Lanie is fast and all she can think is _Lanie, I can't do this, don't let him die._

The doors fly open and she's too slow. His hair slips out of her fingertips. She's running, her shoulders crash against the swinging doors as they sweep out behind him and she keeps moving. Her heel slips in the stream of blood they've left behind and she goes down. Her hip connects with floor and she pleads, wails, "Please!" though she knows no one can hear her. Nobody is listening.

It's too bright and they're leaving, they don't have time for her. She gets to her feet to go after him, to just stay with him. She rounds the corner and catches sight of Lanie, still straddled over him, pumping furiously at his chest and scolding him, scolding him even now.

She hears Lanie's voice, strict and demanding and drifting further away, "Come on, Rick, don't you die on me. Stay with me, stay with me."

After that everything is muffled and broken. She can barely make out the voices, stuttering and talking over each other, fast and sharp and useless.

"Come on, Rick, do not die. Do not die."

"Set up for a chest tube, Trauma 1."

"Switch, we got this."

"This is _my_ friend, you understand me, he's my friend."

"Then let us save his life."

It's the last thing she hears before they disappear through another set of doors and she falters, body wreaked and trembling, frozen. _Please, don't leave me_.

A moment later the doors squeal, a startling sound slicing through the bleak emptiness. Kate lifts her head and finds Lanie, shadowed by the swinging doors. Her hands hang limply at her sides, his blood slowly dripping from her fingertips. The usual glint in her eyes is murky with fear, plump lips falling open on a soundless apology. She steps forward, bloodied hands reaching for her friend, but Kate stumbles back, her spine connecting with the wall.

Kate vehemently shakes her head and it stops Lanie's approach. "Don't, Lanie," she whispers. A low howling keen hiccups at the base of her throat and her hold body seems to convulse with grief. "I love him," she sobs.

The unspoken, _I'll never forgive you_ , _I'll never forgive myself,_ hangs heavy between them. Nodding, Lanie sighs, "I know, sweetie, I know you do." She steps forward and Kate folds down into her arms, hanging limply over her shoulders and trembling with sorrow.

Kate hears Ryan's voice, furious and determined, the roughly barked orders bouncing off the walls and she turns. She catches the swish of red half a second before the air is pushed sharply from her lungs and her shoulder blades crack roughly against the wall. The sharp jut of Alexis's chin presses hard against Kate's sternum and she straightens her spine, offers the girl the little that is left of herself.

Thin, quivering arms wrap around her waist and Kate bundles her up, the young girl suddenly so small, so fragile. Kate rests her chin on Alexis's head, keeps her close. "They just took him in," she murmurs.

[x]

The violescent sky begins to bruise into a battered blue as the seven of them, dressed in black and marred by circumstance wait silently in rigid plastic seats. The place is sterile, quiet and unpromising, the sharp smell of chemicals that mopped away his blood in the entrance burning at the back of Kate's throat.

The boys come and go, they pace and huddle and say things she doesn't understand. Lanie at least washed his blood from her skin but their clothes are hardening with it and the coppery smell lingers heavily around them. Martha and Alexis are pressed against each other, folded awkwardly over sharp armrests with empty eyes and her dad is folded up next to them, silently stoic, as always.

Ryan is the one who surprises her. He spreads himself thin and fills up the spaces that she has abandoned. He is fast and methodical, unwavering. Esposito is throwing his weight around like some crazed thing, but they are moving around each other seamlessly. She catches snatches of their conversations, Ryan setting unreasonable deadlines, calling in favours now because he can, because he is quiet and hard-working and more people owe him than they will ever know. Espo jerks about, shaken and restless, he settles beside Lanie, he brushes a hand to Kate's shoulder, he moves along again.

The sun drops away completely. Still, nobody speaks.

"Ah… Beckett," Ryan says, nodding to the doors at the far end of the hall before barking down his phone again.

"Kate, a sniper at a funeral?" Josh questions indignantly, clearing the doors and staunching toward her.

She jumps up, pressing her tired fingers to his shoulder and ushering him into the hallway before he can say anything more. Her father frowns; his eyes crinkling and nostrils flaring as she moves to pass him, and Kate had rebelled enough in her youth to recognize this look when his disappointment in her comes both startling and confusing. "Please don't, Dad," she murmurs.

His worn fingertips slide over her wrist as she slips past. "Oh, Katie," he sighs, nodding his head toward Josh's back, silently urging her to do right.

"Josh –" Kate starts as she rounds the corner, but her words are cut off, open mouth buried against his scrubs as he tugs her into him, arms tight around her waist.

He tucks two fingers under her chin to lift her face before he speaks, his ordinarily deep voice roughened further by panic, "Jeez, Kate, it could have been you. I heard the call in at emergency, the funeral, and I was just… I was so worried."

It startles her, though she's vaguely aware that it shouldn't. "What?" She roughs out, her throat raw with restrained anguish. Her palm presses against his chest, guiding him away, and all her sharp features twist into something almost unkind. "It _should_ have been me, Josh! That bullet was for me!"

He stares down at her, affronted by her ignorance of the fear she'd incited. "My god, Kate," he growls, undispersed panic still hunching his shoulders despite the way he reaches out and curls his fingers against her hip. "He is the one who pushed you back into your mother's murder. If he was shot, that is why. He opened her case, played cop, put you all in danger. This is not your fault, Kate, no matter how responsible for him you feel." He realise his indiscretion a moment too late, fear turning him vicious against any threat to this woman he loves despite every warning he's seen against doing just that. Loving her, he knows, is a dangerous, losing game.

Kate's hands knot up into fits against her side and she moves to tell him to leave, _Please, just leave me,_ but Josh's eyes catch over her shoulder, widening with something this side of horror. She turns a second too late.

"Shut up! He didn't deserve this!" Alexis shouts. She lashes out from behind Beckett and shoves Josh. He stumbles, the bulky weight of his broad shoulders hitting the wall before he springs forward, clumsily righting himself.

"Whoa, Alexis," Beckett gasps, turning to grab hold of the girl's shoulders. She reels her in fast and wraps her up before twisting over her shoulder, "Go, Josh. Now!" She spits, harshly.

Alexis's body is stiff with rage and Beckett, in some unearthed maternal instinct, attempts to soften her own self in compensation. "Why was he even here?" Alexis growls into Kate's collar. Suddenly, after a long breath, she pushes against her. Breaking Beckett's hold, she turns to leave, long soft locks licking out around her in a hellish halo as she twists back toward her, "or actually, you know what, what the hell are _you_ even doing here?" she barks. The colour drains from her youthful face, turning her aged in moments. She squares her shoulders, a reflection of her father in the way she fights. "Why don't you just go, Detective? Just leave with your boyfriend!" she finally spits, skilfully detached.

The girl begins pacing, movements jerky and trembling despite the vehemence with which she moves, stalking dangerously around Kate. Kate's fingers furl and unfurl against the still damp material of her uniform. Her hand reaches out and falls back again as Alexis's tightly wound body begins to falter, trembling as she turns herself around and around, falling into hysteria.

Kate takes a deep breath and strikes out, a quick move that reels the girl in and tucks her against her own shaking body. Kate's arms wind tightly around Alexis's shoulders, trapping the girl's bent arms and balled fists between them. The angry shudders coursing through the girl knock against Beckett and she holds on tighter, squeezes her arms and gets an ankle around one of the girl's. She curls down around her and shushes her gently, rocking back and forth. "Alexis, hey, stop. Honey, stop… stop. Just look at me."

The girl is adamant in her anger, still twisting roughly against Kate, struggling to pull away. Kate sighs and shifts, wrapping her hands tightly around her shoulders and swiftly pushing her at arms-length. It startles the girl into stillness as she blinks, stunned, at Kate. Beckett ducks down, gently wiping the wet tangled locks from Alexis's face. "It's him, Alexis," Kate quietly assures, her face softening into a sweet, saddened smile, "Your Dad. It's always been him."

Alexis hurtles back into her. She wraps her arms around Kate in a hold too wild, adrenaline and anger leaving her muscles taut and straining. Kate runs her hand through the girl's hair, palm curving over the base of her skull and tucking her gently under her chin as the girl shatters. Her lithe frame shudders, racked with gut-wrenching sobs as Kate takes the weight of her, crying softly into his daughter's hair in shared grief.

Alexis sniffles, twisting her face into Kate's neck like a toddler seeking home. "Kate," she whispers into the wet skin at the base of Kate's throat, "Kate, I hate you."

Kate nods. "I know, Alexis, I know you do," she whispers just as gently. She presses a kiss to the crown of the girl's head, tightening her hold for a moment before she lets her go.

Alexis's deflated form rounds the corner and Kate slides down the wall, body collapsing under the weight of herself as she sobs quietly, hitting the ground.

[x]

Moments later familiar arms loop over her shoulder, the warmth and weight of a curved palm tugging her against a solid chest so steep in memory it makes her feel small, unbroken. "Katie, listen to me," her father murmurs against her hair, "I know you're hurting, but she's still so young, his little girl needs you to be strong now."

Misplaced nastiness rises in her, something about hypocrites squaring her shoulders, but she bites her tongue, knows it to be a coping mechanism that's never really helped. She presses her chin further to her chest and shrugs against the tension. "She hates me, Dad," she finally admits.

"No, Katie- " his instinctive rebuttal comes but Kate breaks over him, can't stand some useless platitude now.

Her voice is scratched with remorse, "She does, Dad, she told me and it's… fair. I deserve it. God, what have I done?"

"Katherine Beckett, neither stupidity nor self-pity sit well on a woman like you."

Jim's arm tightens around Kate's shoulders as her head shoots up, eyes scrunched as she squints to bring Martha's silhouette into focus. His mother is a shadow against the fluorescent light, the stiffness of her spine highlighted by her sudden height.

"Don't you dare venture down that path," she scolds, her usually colourful voice straightening out in unorthodox strictness, "I do not want to hear that nonsense again. You are _not_ the one who shot my son."

"No," Kate dips her head again, pain weighing down her neck, "but I put him in the crosshairs. Castle, he… that bullet was meant for me, Martha, I'm so sorry." She whispers, almost plea-like.

"Now you just listen to me, right now," Martha demands, no space in her voice for compromise as she steps forward, "I will _not_ have this family tearing themselves apart while _my_ _son_ is in there fighting for his life. Do you understand me?"

Kate glances at her father, squirrel-like eyes searching his soft face for some anchoring thing just as she did as a child. Martha steps closer, towering over Kate for a tense moment before she reaches a hand out to her.

Kate shakily takes the older woman's warm, thin palm, rising as her free hand wipes roughly at her face. The two women stand, hand-in-hand in a moment of solidarity and re-affirmed strength, before Martha nods silently, decisively, and tugs Kate along, heading back to the waiting room.

[x]

For thirty five minutes Alexis holds herself in stiff isolation, intentionally unrecognising of Kate's returned presence beside her. Thirty five minutes and then she sighs with the exhaustion of holding anger, her thin shoulders curl in and she quietly drops her head onto Kate's arm.

Beckett lays her head down on top of his daughter's, fingers combing gently through the tangled end. "I know, sweetie," Kate assures in a gentle whisper, relief uncoiling her body as Alexis nods against her.


	2. Chapter 2

The quiet spaces between sirens begin to fatten up as the city does its best to rest. Kate watches. She counts every ambulance that screams and wails and then ambles away, she keeps track of all the minutes in between and finds she breathes more deeply in the silence. She gathers up all the details of activity as it trickles slowly outside and tucks them away. She fills her mind with uselessness.

Ryan's phone rings, the harsh sound drawing her back to him with a start. "Sorry, sorry," he mutters, bending down to scoop it up with clumsy fingers that falter and try again. She looks to him eagerly at the long pause after, "Ryan", but he's already shaking his head and dropping his eyes away in apology.

She sighs and turns away, catching a regrettable glimpse of their family, his and hers and the one they share. All of them wilting away. Martha is staring out the window unseeing and a sudden wave of gratitude sweeps through Kate when she catches her father's hand clasped around Martha's, keeping her here as best he can. He's dazed though, eyes clouded over and Kate swallows hard against the rising memories of loss she sees in his sunken gaze.

Lanie has split away from them and gathered herself up a few seats away. She's lifted her crossed legs up onto her chair like a small girl and Kate's never seen her look so scared, never seen her so carefully independent as she narrows her own existence so frighteningly.

Ryan paces past her; he whispers harshly into his phone, something about _not good enough_ and _he can't be gone_. Kate tries to make sense of it all but nothing sticks. Her eyes flit over to Esposito. He's standing – has been standing for hours now – against the wall opposite them and he looks, for the first time since she's known him, every bit the soldier. At attention, jaw set. His breathing and blinking have turned measured and deliberate acts, nothing left to impulse or instinct. Javi has disappeared somewhere inside his special-forces shell, silent and unnervingly still. Kate swallows hard and prays to all the Gods she's been hassling tonight that he too, is able to come back to them.

Alexis shuffles around next to her, eyes left wide by the way Beckett jostled her when Ryan's phone rang and Kate looks down, shushes her gently. She hooks her fingers around the girl's ear and settles her back against her shoulder. She softens immediately and Kate is struck painfully by just how young she really is. She drops her head back against the wall and closes her eyes against it all.

She starts again. Siren number one.

Eight minutes past siren number five and the jagged edges of Alexis's nails bite into Kate's thumb. The sharp sting pulls her back into the room to see him. Blue scrubs and tired eyes, his face withered, wrinkled up with decades built of night after night of this. The acrid taste of anxiety rises fast to the base of Kate's throat and her body blisters with panic. It tunnels her focus, turns her knuckles white around his daughter's hand.

"Mrs Rodgers?" He calls. His voice rough with exhaustion and all these piled up hours.

His calm professionalism cracks momentarily as they each rise, hesitate, and step into him from every direction. Martha, first. Then Alexis and Kate. Jim. Lanie. Ryan and Esposito. He turns this way and that, eyes flicking briefly over each of them. He swallows nervously when his gaze lands on Esposito, fingers knotting up in his surgery cap. Their mismatched family takes him by surprise, but to his credit, it's momentary. He nods and turns back to Martha. "Your son is out of surgery."

"Is he okay? Will he be alright?" His mother rushes in, impatient and demanding, fearful mostly.

"Well, during the surgery he experienced cardiac arrest," he continues, voice thick and smooth - practised. The room gasps, swells and wavers over a collective breath. "We were able to get his heart beating again on its own, but… we'll need to watch him very closely."

Suddenly the ground is falling away, sinking with the weight of Kate's relief. Her vision smudges in black around the edges and her dad presses his palm to the base of her spine. "Katie," he whispers, quickly stepping in to press his body behind hers. He takes the crashing weight of her and huffs under the pressure. "Okay," he whispers into her ear, private and reassuring, "I've got you."

She doesn't hear.

Silent tears wash over Alexis's blotchy cheeks. "When can I see him?" She asks. Her eyes are already eager, brimming with the timid beginnings of something brighter and Kate chokes on the way the girl is so quick to hope. Too much like her father in all the ways she'll let the world hurt her.

"As soon as the nurses get him settled, we'll bring you two back to him." The Doctor smiles, tired and loose at the corners but light behind the eyes, fulfilled by the smallest of the girl's glimmerings.

He takes in the rest of them then and his shoulders slump at the pale, greyed skin, blossoming blue beneath bloodshot eyes, the uniforms and all the places they've turned crisp with blood. He sighs. "The rest of you should go home, get some rest," he says quietly, like an apology.

Kate hears Esposito, paces behind her and it straightens her spine. He growls through clenched teeth, "I don't know about you, Bro, but home is the last place I'll be going. Not until we catch the son of a bitch who did this."

Half a heartbeat later and the same crazed, rough edge bleeds from Ryan. "Right behind you."

It all coils up tight in her spine, anger and determination and heated resolve. It strengthens her bones with a vengeance and sets her teeth against each other with a hard crack. Orders already curdling up in her stomach, she's ready to bark at them, to demand things they can't give her.

She twists fast and stumbles back with the shock of finding her father so close, her brow furrowing with confusion at the way his hands hover around her shoulders.

"Go, Katherine," Martha says and Kate startles. She flings herself around again; shoulder jerking roughly as she unwittingly tugs Alexis with her. The white hospital lights streak and spin before her wide eyes catch Martha's as she repeats, "Go, darling."

Kate starts to shake her head, _I can't,_ burns on her tongue but Alexis cuts in. "Go, Detective Beckett, you need to go," she says and Kate suddenly understands. They're not asking, they're telling her. This is what they need.

She swallows. Nods. "Right. Yeah, I'm going."

She looks down at the knot of her fingers, tangled up in his daughter's delicate hand. "Oh, sorry," Alexis whispers and moves to pull away but Kate jerks out and grabs tight again. She rests there for a moment, feels sorely guilty about drawing strength from his child. She closes her eyes, squeezes the girl's hand once and once more, something like reassurance and a promise she doesn't have the words to speak.

She turns then and the three of them go.

[x]

The city is clearer and busier than she thought it would be and the normalcy of it all hurts in a way she wasn't expecting. It all moves along with the filthiness of a brusque attitude, untouched, unaffected, unkind. It's crisp outside even as the beginning of summer leaks in under the spring night, the air getting heavier but still hiding a sharp nip that licks up behind your ears and over the tip of your nose. She knows the chill by the way the sidewalk people, still scattered about even at this time of night, tuck their chins, curl their thumbs in their cuffs and step a little more urgently.

Everything dances momentarily in flashing puddles of streetlight before sliding back into deserted shadows as they crawl through the streets, and it stabs at her, the loudness and fleetingness of it all. How fast everything slips past her.

She had thought it would be better, the smells and sounds of the city and the people moving with intention on the street. She thought it would be better than the thick smell of blood, the sting of sterility, bright lights on white walls and fragile hope cradled in her palms.

It's not. It's harsh and hard in a completely different way and it catches her off guard. It's another way the day has gone wrong and the hurt of it is overwhelming.

She lifts her knees and tucks them under her chin. She crouches down inside herself and heavy silence falls around her, it censors out the still buzzing city, the rustle of Ryan's sleeve as he swipes at his phone and the sound of Esposito's thumb incessantly tapping at the steering wheel. She presses her forehead to the window and cries quietly as everything rushes by and sobs for him. For her partner, her best friend, her… Castle.

[x]

The first time he surfaces some waking part of him screams silently with all-consuming pain. His entire body pulses and aches with it.

His nose crinkles, burning with a cruel smell and his skin tugs hard, pinching on his cheeks. Cold air suddenly blasts up his nose, nostrils blocked with some hard, poking thing. He snuffs restlessly against it. He struggles in vain to shake away from it but the back of his skull is swelling fast and dragging him down.

Sound filters in slow and muffled –piercing beeps, air being sucked out to a single point and whooshing back again, a deep, constant whirring and voices, hazy far-away voices, and then metal scraping over metal.

His tongue knocks into a smooth plastic tube and drops off the end of something soft against the inside his cheek. His throat is clogged. Fear grips him with angry fingers at the back of his eyes and he startles.

He blinks.

It's white and foggy. There's a flash of red and recognition. _Alexis_.

Something warm rushes under his skin and makes him too heavy. His eyes slip closed again and consciousness slithers out of reach.

[x]

"Beckett," Esposito hedges, "we're here."

She nods against the glass and pulls back, unfolding herself in the back seat. Her tired eyes drag open and her apartment building momentarily wavers in front of her before clearing into focus. Her body turns rigid at the sight. Cold, bitter anger crawls stealthily along her veins, curling her greyed fingers. "Javier," she warns.

He hears the warning in her voice but doesn't understand. She glares at him as he slowly turns to Ryan. His lips purse in one corner and he raises an eyebrow. Ryan's lips curl down, his brow furrows and she knows they're talking about her. Fury is already bubbling up hot behind her lungs when Ryan jabs a thumb over his shoulder and Esposito sighs.

He shuffles around to face her, but when he speaks his voice is thick and kind and it surprises her. "Kate, your clothes," he says.

"Oh," she looks down at herself, bloodied and trembling still, "right. Right."

She looks to her apartment and turns back to Esposito.

"We're both going home too. We'll all meet at the 12th," he says and she nods.

Her fingers wrap around the handle but she freezes. She catches the figure of a tall, wide, shadow of a man standing outside her elevator, sturdy and alert. Her heart rate gallops and she whips around, catches sight of man standing inside the door of the building opposite hers. It's not the usual doorman, she knows.

She grits her teeth, "Esposito, you've got to be kidding me." His eyes widen, his mouth opens and closes and she rushes on, fuelled by a hot rush of disbelief, "You've put a detail on me?" she asks incredulously. "Call off your boys, Javi. Now!" she finally barks.

His hands fly up in a surrender and she registers the genuine shock on his face. "Beckett, they're not mine, I didn't put anyone on you."

Suddenly the car falls into body rippling silence. Panic crawls up her spine and itches beneath her skin as she lifts and turns, catches a quick glimpse of another occupied car two spaces away, she flips back around, watches the lone figure pacing through her lobby. "Shit," Esposito whispers when he catches her wide eyes and comes to the same dark conclusions.

Her heart canters off as the moment stretches thin between them and Esposito reaches slowly toward the ignition, jaw set tight and shoulder's pressed back, but Ryan takes a deep breath and shocks them both into stillness. He looks out the windscreen. "Kate," he calls her by her first name and doesn't wait for a response.

"Castle wasn't the target." He says with finality, like it explains everything; like it is the end of an argument that he isn't inclined to start before finishing. "They're _my_ men, Beckett. Don't argue," he finishes. It is undeniably an order, Ryan isn't discussing this.

"I - oh. Okay." She says, too stumped by his sudden authority to do anything more. She opens the door but suddenly turns back to him, panic constricting her throat, "Ryan, what about - "

"The detail was already there when we left, Beckett. Martha and Alexis are covered too. We'll meet you at the 12th," he says, voice completely neutral and gaze fixed pointedly away from her, away from Esposito. It terrifies her, that neutral command she's never heard from her brightest boy before.

"Thanks, Kevin," is all she whispers.

[x]

The second time he comes up out of emptiness he's choking. There's a shadow hovering over him, a woman silhouetted against white light. Blue gloves.

"Try to relax, Mr Castle, you'll be more comfortable once we get rid of this," she soothes and he likes her voice, its kind and even. It chases away the panic. The woman with blue gloves tugs once more and a curved tube clears his throat, it scratches and he gags around it. Cold air floods down his newly open airway and he gasps, goes to reach for her but she's already pressing his head back gently with a warm palm.

"You need to sleep some more, Mr Castle," she says, smiling kindly.

He wants to ask her what's happening, what happened, where's Kate, but his eyes are slipping closed again and he's too heavy to fight.

He surrenders willingly to the darkness.

* * *

 _A/N - Thank you all so much for the warm welcome back. I am so glad to be sharing writing with you._


	3. Chapter 3

Gossamer streams of light from his lonesome burning lamp drip over the edges of his desk and pool on the floor, shrouding his small space in a soft yellow glow. It surprises her, finding him like this, hunched over under a single bulb with his brow furrowed. It's not the first time, but it's close to it, and in any case it's irrelevant, familiarity wouldn't make any of this easier.

The precinct air tastes stale on her tongue as she steps out of the elevator, wet hair holding on to the night's cold and turning her thin jumper dark in ugly splotches. She curls her thumbs into her stretched cuffs and shivers against it, the chill and the stillness and the sight of him. Ryan - her youngest and so much like her in ways more dangerous than she's ever been forced to recognise.

She scuttles along, unhealthily accustomed to navigating these hollows in the dark. Her movement stutters as she crosses by Montgomery's office, darkened and shuttered away, the sharp pang of loss and betrayal just another thing that rips straight through her, leaves her a little shakier than before. She pauses, breathes through the rising guilt and moves along, presses herself slowly into Ryan's light.

Concern laces tight across her jaw when she takes in the whole disaster of him. He's been here a while, she notices. He's changed, but that alone isn't enough to convince her he's been home and either way it's not what worries her. It's the strewn files, discarded and crumpled around the edges, the empty mug resting precariously on the edge of his desk. It's unlike him, the mess and carelessness of it all. It terrifies her and she wants to reach out, brush a palm across his shoulder and beg him to _please, be careful_ , but he's turning to her, pressing a pile of files from his desk into her hands.

"Reports," he says, "interviews and statements from Karpowski's team. Everything else has been placed on priority and CSU are rushing it all through the system. I requested everything be sent over, absolutely every report. We'll get them as they become available. Video footage from every point in as wide an area as I was able to pull is on its way."

There's nothing of the eager boy she knows in his voice, nothing in his eyes. He presses the files into her hands and turns away. _Please_ , she thinks, desperate now.

Esposito is loud. He's clumsy and his shoe catches, squeaks and scuffs along the floor as he makes his way to their haloed desks. He mutters and stumbles and grunts. Ryan glares; he pushes a pile towards him and huddles back under his light.

They stack up files and rotate. They turn circles in silence for a string of terrible hours. They check every detail, double-check and triple-check. They cover each other's blind spots and come up with nothing but an unkind reminder that they are used to working as four. They catch their tails and still nobody says anything. They start again. More hours stack up and string along and the silence eats away at them.

Ryan's chair screeches and spins in the air as he propels himself up, out, and stalks away. It's piercing in the stillness of a grey-washed precinct and it startles them, Becket and Esposito both jerk up with wide eyes and hitching breath. She looks at Esposito, eyes questioning and he sighs. His body collapses and he shakes his head. _I know, I don't know._ Beckett blinks slowly, jerks her head toward Ryan's path. _Go._

Esposito nods. Stands. Goes after him.

He heads for the break room, rounds the corner and crashes into him. "Jesus, Esposito, I just needed a bit of space," Ryan hisses, reaching out to right them both and flick the lights on.

Esposito bristles at the sight of his partner in the light. Eyes red and hair matted up by restless fingers, wrists weighing him down. He takes in the NYPD t-shirt and Nike sweats. Training gear, he realises, from his locker. "Bro, d'you go home?"

Ryan's eyes drop away and his head rattles this way and that. "Wanted to get here before her," he says, angling his head toward Beckett.

They both turn then, peer through the half slits in the blinds and take her in. Wet hair knotting up in frizzy curls as it dries around her head. She looks drawn, cheekbones sharp and straining against her paled skin. She's small and soft without her make-up, so much more Kate than Beckett.

Her brow furrows and she dips closer to the table, she tucks the top of her pen into the corner of her mouth and nibbles at it as her eyes flick back and forth over a single line. She huffs, deflates and tosses the paper away when it comes up at the same dead end she ran into the first time around. She moves on to the next leaf without a breath in-between.

Esposito sighs, "Think she'll be okay?"

Ryan stiffens, he reaches inside himself and comes up empty, doesn't have enough energy left to lie. "Not really."

The brutality of it is startling, Esposito's eyes widen and he straightens up. It's momentary though, the defence and debate of it all. His shoulders curl in again and he sighs, "Me neither, Bro. We gotta find this guy."

[x]

The next time he's cognizant again it's daylight; warm ribbons of sunlight slinking in through open blinds, creeping across the grey linoleum floor and stretching up to tickle his fingers. He rises slowly through the fog and familiar sounds flirt at the edges of awareness. Still, the quiet beeping and whooshing and whirring and then something soft that he can't quite place, a rustle, he thinks, and then a huff.

His fingertips flick out and curl away and he feels a cannula wiggle in his vein, tape pinching at the skin of his hand.

"Dad?" He hears and his head lolls toward the sweet, rattling sound.

He blinks, once, twice, three times. His lips stretch out and fall open. "Lexis," he rasps and she rushes forward. For half a second she's there, close, filling his vision, hovering, and then she is going. Moving too quickly. Streams of her locks lift and snap tight in his peripheries. His fingers desperately twitch up, go after her and fall flat on a sigh. She's gone.

He slumps miserably back into darkness.

"Dad?" He hears again, louder this time and more demanding, more like his daughter. His eyes drag open. He finds her there, hopeful and reaching out with timid fingers, brushing his hair away.

"Hi, Baby," he croaks and a sobbing chuckle drops from her lips, eyes glistening as she beams at him.

"Dad," she sighs.

His eyes slips closed again and he listens to the muffled clattering of hurried footsteps and swishing fabric somewhere far away. A heavy breath. Relief. "Oh, Richard, my boy." He feels the gentle press of his mother's palm against his shin. He wants to open his eyes to her but everything is calm now, everything is loose and he's slipping.

Suddenly there's a flurry of activity, a curtain being drawn back fast and the warmth of his family's touch dragging away. He hears the smooth course of professionalism, crisp voices, call and response flowing over him and then quieter questions and Alexis, his mother, agreeing and getting further away. Cold fingers press against the hot skin at his ribs and he winces, eyes flying open despite the heavy pull of sleep.

"What happened?" he husks out, throat dry and chapped lips cracking over the words.

The nurse jerks; she turns away and comes back with a damp cloth. She dabs gently at his lips and offers him a straw. "Just a small sip," she tells him quietly. He's still looking at her intently. "Mr Castle, I think it would be best if - " she continues, eyes dropping away.

"What happened?" he repeats and she swallows.

She nods. "I'll go see if I can get your doctor in here to explain."

By the time the surgeon bursts through the curtain he's half-way back to dreamlessness. He peels his eyes open and his doctor smiles. He tells him everything, shows him black and white scans and numbers he doesn't understand, he says something about _cardiac arrest_ and then something else about _bullet fragments_ and _internal bleeding._ It takes longer than he really has and by the time it's over Castle's too exhausted to comprehend much of it at all. His eyes sag and his voice falls away. "Kate?" is all he manages to whisper.

"Kate's fine, Dad, she's fine," his daughter murmurs somewhere off to his left and he drops off again.


	4. Chapter 4

They exist restlessly on extended blinks of sleep, collapsed over the hard edge of their desks or folded up in turn on the break-room couch. They fill up stolen whiteboards and wall themselves in. Her mother's, drawn up by crisp memory and another, filled up with all the things that burst and ran dry; Raglan, McAllister, Coonan, Lockwood. She re-writes third cop above a question mark that sits heavy in all the spaces that scream with their fallen Captain. Nobody mentions it; his name or the spaces he left behind, and Esposito wheels in a third board that shutters the rest of the bullpen away. _Richard Castle_. They move despondently around the mostly emptiness beneath his name as the blurred edges of each day bleed slowly into the next.

She doesn't know what day it is when Josh stumbles into their desperate space and whispers her name. He says she wasn't home, she hasn't answered her phone and she sighs, too weary to fight, but he shakes his head, tells her he _just thought…_ and holds out a duffel bag, clothes and all the small things she didn't know, he knew, she needs. Grateful, tired tears rush up behind her eyes and he tugs her up into him. He wraps her tight and her aching body goes slack against him, seeks comfort that feels dirty like guilt as he presses an apology she can't remember if she deserves into her hair. She shakes her head. _No, no_ she says and whispers her own choking apology into his shirt but he softens her, tells her _it's okay, Kate, it's okay_ and she's too heavy, too exhausted and shattered to shake her head and tell him it's not. Nothing's okay.

Lanie and Jenny come and go, with food and love and worried, tired eyes. They run their hands over their boys and sigh. Lanie crouches down and spins Kate's chair to face her. "I can't, Lanie," is all Kate says and Lanie nods, she brushes the hair away from Kate's face and presses a kiss to her temple before she goes.

The three of them teeter there, dangerously close to the edge of delirium and none of them really know how many times the sky turns itself over outside their white-board walls before the first new road opens up.

She presses her thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her nose, clenches her eyes against all the things that circle and circle and never meet. His absence weighs her down as she pushes all her energy into convincing herself that his inane yapping is not the thing she is desperately aching for.

Her eyes burn with the realisation that she doesn't really remember how to do this without him, how to crack open her blindfold without his insanity. She huffs and considers it then, all the outlandish nonsense that would irritate her and make him beam. CIA operations and aliens, time travellers, mob wars, sinister butlers, Sasquatch, invisible thieves.

"Ryan, what if he wasn't gone, what if we just didn't see him!" She blurts too loudly.

Ryan jerks and spins in his chair, sleepy befuddlement spilling out of him and making his jaw hang open, "Huh?"

"The place was swarming with cops; the sniper can't have just gone. So what if he didn't? Go, I mean. What if he was there and we just didn't _see_ him?" She explains, tries to explain, voice filling out with the first fluttering of new hope.

"You think it was a cop? Someone from the funeral?" He asks, eyes narrowing with the stinging possibility of yet another betrayal from the inside.

"Oh, I didn't think… I thought…"

"The grounds-keeper," Esposito supplies, growling as he turns to face them, but Ryan shakes his head.

"No, he was interviewed. Yeah, I – here," he says, frantically scrabbling through papers and passing a single sheet to Beckett, "Karpowski interviewed him, didn't get much. She said he was shaken but cooperative."

Esposito pushes up and crowds over her shoulder, skims the short interview report. "Yeah," he grouses, "but all the cops, their DNA would be in the system and nothing matched what was on the weapon. Besides, somebody would have noticed a uniform on a face nobody's seen before, right? The guy couldn't have been posing as a cop without somebody noticing, not that day."

"Right, but the grounds-keeper…" Ryan's voice fades away as realisation and desperate, delusional hope settles heavily over them.

"Let's go!" Beckett growls but they're already up and going. Tugging on coats and staunching through a bullpen that stutters with the sudden movement of them.

The three of them burst out into falling daylight, creaking and finally moving with purpose.

[x]

She thought somehow that all this would be familiar, the smell of green and the harsh crunch and bounce of tyres over gravel, the gates and the calm stillness of this place. She'd thought she would know the elements of it as it all licked back to her senses, but memory is a strange thing, insane in the way it lifts up and dusts of fragments of time, chubby pattering feet on floor boards and her mother's soft curls coming in and out of focus, _Katie, don't run_ , and quite sane in the way it leaves behind long tracks of irretrievable nothingness. It feels completely foreign, the cemetery, clouding in under a falling sun.

There's nothing of him here. Castle. A broken piece of police tape wisps up and snaps taut in the wind, there are patches of unsettled grass, flattened or kicked up, but everyone is gone, the markers and lights and crush of an active crime scene has all faded away and he's not here. The place is foreign and everything filters in slowly, brand new.

He's short, round and balding, with sweet eyes and rosy cheeks. The grounds-keeper. He smells of cigarettes and coffee when he speaks it's in a voice roughened by years, "I'm sorry, Detectives, I've never heard of him. I called in sick that day - food poisoning, the doctor said - but he's not… I don't know that name, Detectives. He definitely doesn't work here."

She expects it, but still, it rips through her and leaves her breathless. Every hour they spent running on hamster-wheels, chasing after some elusive dragon and this _, this_ is where they fell. Deception and the cheapest kind at that. It's a careless and gut-wrenching thing. It twists tight in her stomach and leaches the blood from her face.

She vaguely registers the rest of the murmured exchange and the way Ryan and Esposito step in front of her, literally take her out of the equation and move along with the stiffness of protection. It all filters in and out but it's hazy and she knows, as the door clicks into place behind her, that it is just another thing that memory will kindly turn to black.

[x]

The bullpen has already slowed to a quiet shuffle, the dullness of late evening creeping in behind them and sending people home.

"Karpowski, now!" Esposito hollers as they step out of the elevator and the air falls still, a cold chill racing through the room as Karpowski shoots up from her chair.

She matches pace with them, follows along on the other side of the grilled wall and steps into the secluded, holed up area around their desks. She turns this way and that, takes in Ryan, shrunken away in too big clothes with bloodshot eyes and pursed lips and then Beckett, cold eyes staring back at her, pale and hollow. She tears her gaze away and looks back at Esposito, shoulders squared away and nostrils flaring as he huffs out a rough breath.

"We need you to do a sketch of the grounds-keeper. Every member of your team, everyone who might have seen him that day, needs to do a sketch. We need everything we can get on this guy. Now!" He barks at her and she jolts.

Karpowski's eyes widen in sudden, awful comprehension. "Detective Beckett, I - " she starts, turning to Kate with her eyes bowed in remorse, but Kate shakes her head, teeth grinding and fists clenched.

"Don't!" She growls and stalks away.

[x]

Kate's hand trembles, ceramic rattling against metal as steam hisses and rushes up fast around her. She waves a frustrated hand through the fog and scowls at the complexity of his simple things.

"Detective Beckett?"

The intrusion startles her; she jumps, slams the mug down on the counter and smacks the machine into silence.

"What?" She snaps as she turns and falters, words tangling up and falling in a heap. "Alexis! Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. What are you doing here? Your dad! What's wrong?"


	5. Chapter 5

Alexis's stunned eyes fall slowly closed on a deep breath, amber eyelashes catching the fluorescent light beaming down on her and sparking against the pale purple shadows marring her delicate skin. Her face ducks away behind the limp curtain of her hair, thin fingers tangling up in each other and twisting around and around.

The restless nervousness of his usually flouncing, eager daughter makes Kate's stomach clench, angry tentacles of fear wrapping tight around her.

"Alexis, please, what's wrong?"

The anxiety rattling her voice hits Alexis and her eyes snap back to Kate. "Sorry, no, nothing. Dad's good. Sleeping," she says quickly, voice rising with the panic of still burning possibilities.

Kate reaches out quickly to prop herself up on the counter, relief rushing in fast and dizzying, overwhelming.

"I just…" Alexis starts again but trails off.

Kate crunches in at the way her quiet voice tappers away into nothing. The hanging silence catches in all the aching places she misses him because it's painful, how much of this girl is him. The way she chatters and smiles and bubbles around. The way she goes quiet about the real things; silent in her pain and shamed in her small wanting. "You just -" Kate prods gently and Alexis slumps under the softness of it.

"Grams went to see Paula, to keep ahead of all this, because the press can be, well, stupid and cruel and Dad wouldn't want... anyway she's there now." The words finally rush out, hurried and clumsy.

"Um, okay," Kate breathes out slowly, buying time to place the information somewhere as her exhausted thoughts curl in around the edges, bump into each other bounce away, never connecting, "and you want me to go with her?" she finally ventures.

Alexis's face screws up. "What?"

"I'm a cop. I could do… something." Kate winces as the thick stupidity of it lingers over her tongue and she clamps her mouth shut.

"Oh," Alexis's mouth quirks up in fleeting amusement but she shakes her head, "no. It's just that it's the first night that Grams isn't going to be with me and, I know it's stupid, but I just can't really stand the thought of being in the loft without them. Both of them," she finishes on a whisper and dips her head again as a soft pink blush rushes up over her cheeks.

She looks so beautiful, catching all the light in her auburn hair and glittering amongst creeping shadows. She looks brave and fragile and more like a child than Kate has ever seen.

Beckett's fingernails dig sharply into her palms at the way his daughter curls into herself, timid and courageous in the way she barely hopes. It claws painfully at Beckett's ribcage as she gulps down the bitter taste of disgrace over a years old promise she made to stave off his paranoia.

 _If something were to happen to me I want you to watch out for Alexis._

His voice echoes in her stuttering mind as she watches his daughter, standing here and asking without asking, because her short life has already taught her more than she needs to know about shattered expectations and the pain of misplaced trust.

She is fierce and brilliant and unravelling. She's not entirely sure of this, Kate can see.

"No," Beckett chokes, "not stupid. Definitely not stupid."

Alexis looks up, drawn up out of awful silence by the crack in Kate's voice. She stares wide-eyed at the trembling detective.

Kate clears her throat. "I'm glad you came, yeah, that's good," she tries again, gritting her teeth at her sudden inarticulacy as Alexis's shy eyes fall back to tracing the movement of her foot as it scuffs back and forth.

Her mouth goes dry on crumbled words, anxiety setting her skin on fire as she takes in his child and is faced with sudden, frightful awareness of her own inadequacy.

 _She looks up to you_.

She remembers his voice, genuine and filled with trust, even then. She pauses, breathes, and pushes on. "So, you'll come home with me?" She means for it to be a statement, but it drops out hesitantly like a question because she's not sure of this either, and her incompetency is strangling.

Alexis looks up and smiles weakly, the cautious relief in her eyes just another heartbreaking reminder that he really is all she has and Kate is - his partner. "I, yeah, if that's okay?"

"Great!" Beckett blurts and it's too loud, too eager. She huffs out an embarrassed laugh at herself and says, "Come on," more softly. Kate knocks her fingers into the girl's shoulder and pushes her back out into the bullpen, swallowing hard as the very real threat of failure settles heavy on her shoulders.

[x]

"You guys heading home?" Ryan asks as Beckett grabs her jacket.

Esposito spins to face them and smiles brightly, shooting a tiny curl of his fingers at Alexis. "Hey, Little Castle, you taking Beckett home for us?" He jokes.

Beckett tenses and shoots him a look he doesn't understand, but Alexis smiles back. "Somebody has to do it," she says with a shrug and Beckett huffs out a relieved chuckle, baffled again by the way the Castles can so swiftly change gears. She wraps her fingers around the back of Alexis's neck and steers her away from the boys.

Her gaze catches for a moment over the window and she remembers all the pleading looks from Jenny, the sighed acceptance from Lanie. The final embers of daylight have already burnt out, deserting the precinct in shadows and she turns back to Ryan. "Yeah, we're going home, and I want you two to head home now too."

Ryan twists in his chair, turns to look at Esposito as the smile drops off his face. Ryan frowns and shakes his head but Esposito is resolutely not taking this one, he scowls back at Ryan and jerks his head toward Beckett before looking away. Ryan sighs. "Boss, we think - "

Beckett glowers at them, glare lingering on Esposito a little longer for his cowardice. "That was not a question," she snaps.

They both jolt, frantically gathering their things and rising with a synchronised, "Yes, Boss."

As the elevator doors close Alexis turns to Kate, "Detective Beckett, I'm really s-"

"Don't," Beckett stops her gently, "don't you dare apologise. You did the right thing."

[x]

Alexis stills at the stuffy smell rushing out of Beckett's apartment as the door swings open, the air musty, thick and still. Her eyes widen in comprehension and Beckett sighs at the all too familiar wisdom burning across the younger girl's face. She presses her free palm into her back and ushers her inside.

"You want to sit on the lounge? Take the pizza and I'll just grab some plates," she says, handing Alexis the box and shuffling through her apartment to open a window, burningly ashamed of the taste of her home.

Alexis takes in the place, bursting into a soft yellow glow as Kate moves along, tapping on lights and bringing her home to life. It's a beautifully deep space, rich and warm and overtly private. She settles on the couch and flinches at her own intrusion.

"You know, Detective Beckett, it was pretty cool to see you like that," she calls out to Kate, trying desperately for normalcy in the abnormal.

"Firstly, Alexis, please call me Kate, or just, something other than Detective Beckett," Kate says as she drops down gracelessly with her exhaustion, hands the girl a plate and grabs a slice, "and secondly, see me like what?"

"Oh, um," Alexis freezes mid-way through reaching for her own slice and twists back to look at Kate, "Can I call you Beckett?" she asks timidly.

Kate huffs out a laugh. "Yeah, Beckett's fine. That's what your dad calls me," she says with a soft smile.

"Yeah, I know." The girl's eyes mist over as she turns back to grab her slice of pizza and Kate winces, silently berating herself for such profound stupidity.

"So," She quickly moves Alexis along, "It was cool to see me like what?"

Alexis tips her head in question before her gaze clears and she nods. "At the precinct," she finally says after swallowing.

"You always see me at the precinct."

"Yeah, yeah I know, but I've never seen you like _that_ with Detectives Ryan and Esposito," Alexis explains, "Like their boss. It was pretty cool to see the way they listen to you like that."

"Oh," Kate chuckles, surprised by the glimmer in the younger girl's eye, "yeah, I don't usually have to… do that."

Alexis contemplates that for a moment and then nods. She twists her body, lifts her legs up under herself and Beckett smiles softly at the way the girl's body softens as she makes herself comfortable. Something nervous loosens up in Kate's chest at the sight.

"Does my dad ever listen to you like that?" Alexis asks once she's settled.

Kate can't help the startled laughter that escapes. "What do you think?" She dead-pans.

Alexis face flushes, light lifting in her eyes as she laughs and shakes her head. "Never."

[x]

"Dad's okay," Alexis whispers after a long silence.

Beckett tenses. She swallows thickly and nods. "Yeah, of course he is, Alexis. Your Dad is so strong, he'll be alright," she says, proud of how sure her voice comes.

Alexis sighs and reaches out to place her palm on Kate's shoulder, "I know, Beckett, I was _telling_ you," she says and Kate turns wide eyes to her.

Beckett watches the concern crawl over Alexis and sighs, defeated, doing this all wrong. "Alexis, please, you don't need to worry about me."

Alexis pulls her hand away and nods unconvincingly, her mouth still pursed on one end. She yawns suddenly, wide and loud, neck cracking as she stretches. She comes back to Beckett with shocked, shiny, sleep filled eyes and Beckett smiles gently at her.

"Take my bed, Alexis, I'll take the lounge," she says, carrying on quickly when she sees the protests bubbling up in the young girl, "I have some files I want to run over one more time anyway."

"Detective Beckett - " Alexis hedges, treading carefully and sounding just like her father.

"I'm fine," Beckett says and Alexis sighs. She nods and moves to grab the plates from the coffee table. "Alexis," Kate warns and the girl sighs again, dramatically this time, just like her grandmother.

She stands sheepishly. "Thanks, Beckett, for all of this," she offers timidly.

Kate shakes her head, stands up and turns the girl by her shoulders, gives her a nudge toward the bedroom. "Always," she whispers, "now go to bed, make yourself at home, use whatever you want."

Alexis nods and shuffles along, but turns back just shy of the door, tired face shadowed and dipping in city light. Her voice comes quiet and private, sincere. "Hey, Beckett, I was thinking, maybe you could take me back to the hospital in the morning and come up to see dad?"

Kate's lips fall open on a soundless gasp, heart pounding furiously as she nods lamely and sinks back down onto the couch.


	6. Chapter 6

Her delicate fingers rake through his hair, brushing the matted locks flopping over his forehead away so reverently that it pulls his heavy eyes open. She smiles softly at the flicker of blue and he mirrors her, lips curling up and splitting open as the backs of her fingers drag over his stubbled cheek and drop off his chin.

"Morning, Pumpkin," he croaks and Alexis grins like she used to as a baby, left side of her mouth tipping up as her head lolls the other way.

He reaches out to bundle up her fingers in his palm, smile broadening when his focus clears and he sees that she looks lighter today, like she unloaded something heavy from the bags beneath her eyes and came back to him a little younger than yesterday. She's brave, his little girl.

She smiles back and squeezes her thumb over his fingers. "You have a visitor, Dad," she whispers.

Her head tips forward on her palm, forehead nudging the air in direction and his head flops over on the pillow.

His eyes widen, the smile drops from his face and he swallows thickly against the improbable sight of her. Kate. The unmistakable line of her body curved into the chair on the other side of his stiff, tilted hospital bed. The long, tubed, white lights running over the head of his bed catch in her hair and send it tumbling into the nooks of her collar bones, pooling there, liquid gold against her thin skin.

She looks fragile, like she's been going for days on end and the toll of every mounting hour is starting to bloom on her skin. She's ragged with exhaustion and her curls are a little looser than usual, heavier maybe, like the rest of her. She looks so beautiful.

Her lips lift up and fall away in a hesitant smile and he physical aches with the magnificence of it. _Kate._

Her fingers stretch out, shaky digits reaching for him instinctively but she catches them and curls them away in a shy wave. "Hey, Castle," she says, her gentle smile blossoming now and warming her voice.

He physically burns with the sudden nearness of her. It's overwhelming; the way his body pulls tight against its wounded edges and threatens to bleed. The weight of it drags him down into his pillow and instantaneously, he's exhausted.

"Beckett," he manages after a stretched out breath and another, "Hi."

She gets trapped there, bracketed in the moment between the short bursts of his rough voice. It's a foreign sound, gruff and hurting and completely unlikely.

They're both caught there, suddenly weary, teetering between ecstasy and despair at the first sight of _them_ after _that_ and she wonders how to be now. She wonders who they are now, separately and together, and how to be. She wonders if any of it even makes a difference.

Alexis's chair screeches and pulls them both up and out and back into his small hospital room.

"I'm going to go get a milkshake; you want some coffee or something, Beckett?" She asks as she stands. She's completely oblivious to the magnitude of her disturbance but Beckett's grateful, for the exit, and she feels shamefully gutless at that thought.

She shakes her head and watches the girl go.

"You guys are on first name basis now? Conspiring against me while I'm down?" Castle asks. There's something a little more familiar in his voice, but still, it's not his own and she has to turn and see him to know what the question really is, it's just another thing to hurt.

She twists back and the sight of him dissolves her. He's yellowed against the too white sheets, his eyes sunken, and his skin bruised dark around them. His large frame is shrinking away the narrow hospital bed and his unwashed hair is flopping back over his forehead, jaw rough with days old growth. He is all ragged edges and pained, tired looking skin but he's grinning like the man she knows, eyebrow rising up to tease what he wants out of her and she's never seen anything so beautiful.

She grins back. "Well, not exactly first name," she shrugs, easily reflecting his tone and happy to be a little bit of whom they were, "but yes. Alexis…" She pauses there, debating; the little that Alexis asked of her last night feeling like some private thing now that she's here, "Is a really great kid, Castle."

His face lifts and lights up with pride.

"Don't know where she got it from," Kate adds dryly.

He huffs and studiously works on a scowl but he's tired and he knows he won't even get close. "Beckett, how cruel, I am already wounded," he whines and pouts instead.

He watches her, shimmering even under the cruelty of hospital lights and rolling her eyes like they're not here, tucked into the poky space that's keeping him alive. Her face says _Get over it, Castle_ and he beams, feels like he's breaking open beside her.

"She's been entertaining me all day, _every_ day," he says with quiet awe and Beckett smiles softly. "She's even been breaking the rules, Beckett, she's been sneaking in with prohibited items," he stage whispers.

Kate chuckles and he smiles, chest burning with the sound. She shifts in the chair, drawing her legs up and crossing them under her as she settles in. All her long limbs folded up, elbow pressing into the armrest and cheek resting in the cup of her palm. Her body tilts, unknowingly, toward his.

"What did she bring you?"

He smirks and draws out the moment. His eyes dart around the room suspiciously before he sluggishly curls a finger in the air and beckons her closer.

She rolls her eyes again just to see him smile, then finally obliges, leaning into him.

"A burger with fries and a cannoli for dessert," he finally whispers and she jerks back in her chair.

"Castle!" she scolds. She glares at him but it won't stick. "How?" She finally asks, pursing her lips against a smile. She's really a good kid, his little girl.

He shifts toward her in the bed, the sickly smell of manufactured sterility mingling with pained recovery lifting up and flooding over her. He winces and she's reaching for him, tugging the blankets out to give him more freedom and settling them back over his shoulder.

Castle brings his eyes back to hers and they linger in some heavy moment before he clears his throat and looks away, because… it's who they were before and he doesn't know how to be now, he doesn't know if it's different at all. "It was an intricate and complex operation," he deflects, though his voice is tight, and she's both relieved and pained by the way he lets it go so quickly, "it was days in the making."

He drops into the story and she falls hopelessly into his gravity. He tugs her along at a gruelling pace, laying down a detailed road map of the hospital and the staff routines. He's merciless in his description of Natalie, the head nurse, who was apparently the biggest hurdle and also, as a side note, not the biggest fan. Natalie calls her daughter, at 6:15pm every day, he says, without a doubt. He looks at Kate with wide eyes as though that action alone is just offensive and he's waiting for her to agree.

Kate schools her features, she nods like she understands because he seems so set about it and she really just wants the rest of the story.

He's tired. She can see the way even this is draining him but his lips are curling up. He's wistful as he settles easily back into himself and she's too grateful for it to stop him.

He carries on, tells her that they don't talk for long, Natalie and her daughter, so Alexis had to move fast. She made it though. Up to his floor and past the nurse's station, despite the foot traffic on the stairs and some uncoordinated teenage boy attempting to control his wheelchair for the first time.

"That's when she ran into Darrel," he grouses, clenching his eyes against the nurse's name.

Kate barely manages to stifle her laugh. "Who's Darrel?" she asks and he opens his eyes to scowl at her.

"Who's Darrel?" he echoes, voice dripping with incredulity, as though she should know, as though Darrel is _so_ bad that _everybody_ knows of him.

He's even less forgiving in his portrait of Darrel, who she realises too late was really only a tangent anyway. He finally knocks on with the epic story of his rule breaking daughter and she's enthralled by every detail and the way his voice fills out as it all builds.

She watches him battle against the urge to lift his hands and bring them into the story, she pauses and breathes with him when he needs it and falls right back in step when he hurtles on.

She squints and laughs and shakes her head at all the right times. She tips forward and pushes away and hides an inappropriate smile behind her fingertips.

"So she's about ten paces from my door, I can practically taste the burger and…"

He stops there at that final pivotal moment and watches in awe as she sighs in frustration.

There is a fierce intimacy to the way she quirks her eyebrow and urges him on, to the way she tunnels in and offers him the whole of her coveted attention.

His mind goes blank with it.

She reaches out and tugs the slipped blanket back up over his shoulder, fingers resting against his neck. "And?" She prods, but the cold pinpricks of her fingertips pressing into his heated skin pull them out of one moment and into the next.

The story crumbles away and they drop heavily into the stillness of each other.

Her hazel eyes swirl away jade green and he wants to reach up and press his fingers between hers. "Staring is creepy, Beckett, I thought you knew," he finally tries to joke but it comes out strained and hurting.

It startles her. Her fingers rush back to her chair, and he's sorry for that immediately, or somehow painfully not sorry, when he knows he ought to be, for wanting her touch.

A smile flitters across her features for a fleeting moment before dropping away. "I didn't even think. Sorry. I should have," she starts awkwardly and he brings his gaze back to find her motioning to the mounting bouquets around his small room.

"I think I already have enough to start my florist, Beckett," he says, tone teasing and letting her of the hook, trying hard to bring them back to equilibrium because he knows she's relying on him for that. Even now. Even though she hates herself for it.

He's glad when she flashes him a taut smile and keeps going, "They were all here when they moved me in, mostly from the precinct, surprisingly."

Her body twists as she nods and gathers up the details of each bouquet, resting on the small drawers next to her chair, tucked onto the shelf beneath his monitors and set all along the windowsill.

His words finally settle in her mind and she spins back to him. _Surprisingly?_ "You're part of the team, Castle. Everyone's waiting for you to get back."

His eyes go wide and she hurts with it, even as he tries to cover it up, the shock and gratitude, like he doesn't know his worth at all. He turns a wicked smile on her and teases, though she can hear the strained coping in it. "You saying you missed me, Beckett?"

She squints over at the drip stand and stares back at him, face entirely expressionless. "Wow, they must have you on the really good drugs, Castle, if that's what you heard," she mutters.

It startles him and makes him laugh. Shallow chuckles all he can manage, but he's grateful nonetheless, for the humour and her and the strange way she's angling for normalcy. For the way she's looking at him like he's light.

They settle into silence as his body goes weak from the exertion of it. The shallow chuckles and the weight of being close to her. The atmosphere shifts around them and he's too tired to lift it up.

"I heard that I crushed you and ruined your uniform. Sorry about that," he says after a long moment.

"Yeah, you, uh…" she starts, shaking her head. "Wait, you heard? You don't remember?" The smile drops from her face as his words fall heavy between them.

She goes limp with the possibility that he…

Something flashes over her face that reads to Castle like misguided guilt, like some owing and he hates it. He doesn't want her here out of some mistaken obligation. He doesn't want her here because he took her bullet and died with her name on his lips. She doesn't _owe_ him anything and if she...

The pity is more than he can carry.

"No I… I don't remember much of anything," He lies, "I remember, uh… a flash or something, I remember trying to get to you, you were on the podium and then I just remember everything going black." His eyes never come back to hers and his voice is too quiet and all of that hurts in an entirely new way.

"You don't remember - " she tries, but the words are dead, buried beneath her gravestone teeth, floating up and haunting her as her eyes slide closed and she re-learns to focus her breathing.

 _Kate, I love you. I love you, Kate._

"Look, Kate, I'm really tired right now," he croaks.

She opens her eyes to him, hard diamonds glittering in the white light. "Oh, of course. Yeah. We'll talk tomorrow." She nods, pulling together her fading edges and gathering the strength to go.

"Do you mind if we don't? I just need a little bit of time."

His words filter through to her just before she reaches the door and she turns. It startles her for more than one reason. That he's asking for anything at all, and that it's time.

She wants to be generous with it – the time – but she's so selfish with him, so completely entangled in his presence that his absence has been blinding. "Sure. How much time?" She finally asks.

"I'll call you, okay?" He whispers.

"Sure. Just… okay, yeah, just… call." Her voice cracks and she gives him a soft smile, though he doesn't look. He's focussed intently out the window, watching the sun creep up the spindly trees lining the hospital grounds, pointedly not watching her leave.


	7. Chapter 7

He thought it would be better; to have more amid the four walls, the ceiling, the floor, than to cry out for her and hear the hollow, clanging sound of his cracked voice echoed back to him in terrible waves.

He'd ached for the margins of his own space, chiselled out and filled up with pieces of him but the ache didn't go, it's only different here and somehow that's worse. Everything is familiar and alien at once. He's home and not home and it's worse.

Some days the familiarity is malicious, cruel in the ways it reminds him of his brokenness. The stairs rising up into an impenetrable boundary between him and them. Things set too high, too low. A bath lip he cannot yet lift himself over.

Alexis helps, she lifts up on tip toes, she brings things down to him and lays everything out. She's kind and patient and that hurts too. He's sorry. Most of the time, he's just sorry.

Sometimes it's better, mainly in the light, mainly with Alexis, but mostly it's worse. Night comes fast and too often. Her name still rings out. He barely sleeps.

He doesn't know if the fear of insomnia or the fear of what woke him is stronger. He's even less certain that it matters, but he gets trapped in the thought. Trapped in the fear and the thought of the fear.

It's been weeks, mountains of days falling into days and it's her. Still her. In some form or another. Some worse than others. In every second that he closes his eyes, it's her and he's instantly unlearning how to unlove.

He keeps his eyes open and tries to move, but nights are more painful than days. His spatial memory is sharp, instinctive, but it belongs to another man. An unbroken man who's unused to the lag of this shattered body that burns and burns and moves too slowly. It sends him turning too early in the dark. He catches his toe on sharp corners, his shoulder or elbow or his sharpened hip bone. He snags and bristles and the pain is demanding.

Most nights he's here. Eyes open. Cradling a mug of whiskey, because pulling down a tumbler is just another small thing that needs a bigger man. Curled awkwardly in his desk chair and grieving for all the things he's not, for some fictitious future that optimism wrote in Braille. Pessimism floods through him now, addictive and toxic like clarity and at least that's better. The melancholy is softer than the brutality of hope.

[x]

It's been weeks and she's verging on manic. They worry but they don't ask. She's hyper-vigilant and strictly insistent on protocols she's never herself adhered to before. She's always first through the door and pushing them back. She snaps and scolds and tucks them in close.

She's overprotective and it's both misguided and dangerous. She's dangerous.

She barks orders and hovers for days before Esposito cracks. He turns and grabs her by the shoulders in a bleak corridor of some seedy hotel that she wouldn't let them go through alone. He shakes hard. "Stop, Beckett. It wasn't your fault!"

The life goes out of her beneath his hands. She goes soft and her eyes drop away. "He shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have let him be there, Javi." It's not much more than a breath.

He breathes in return. He drops his hands and she straightens up, because there's nothing else to do. He was hers. Not just her partner but, _hers,_ and she let him be. There's nothing to say.

They take turns - Ryan and Esposito. They roster their mornings and leave a coffee on her desk. They never talk about it, because it's only temporary. They tell themselves that.

It's a sweet gesture. A _we love you too_ and _he'll be back, Beckett, don't worry_. She doesn't tell them he won't. She can't, she just nods and puts everything she can muster into her "Thank you."

They all ask. Homicide and every other floor, all the people she doesn't know but he does. "How's Castle?"

"Fine," she says, "Good, he's doing well. Thanks." She tries to smile. Because what is there to say? Only that she doesn't know. He hasn't called. They both wish it had been her.

She hears his name everywhere. Tumbling out from little knots of people in the hallways, from Ryan and Esposito, though the words halt when she's near. She knows through murmurs not meant for her that he's home. He's already home.

She hardly sleeps because he is dreams, but the sounds, the words, have disappeared and the ache to hear him is too much to stomach.

Most nights she's here. Shutters open wide and chasing down dragons she can't yet see, chasing away the verdict that came with _he's home_. The verdict that it's over, truly over. He's done with her.

Most nights she's just here, staring at words that don't read because she doesn't know how to _be_ now. Separately.

[x]

More and more days collapse and the nights seem longer. Longer and longer all the time. The days seem longer too, because fear never goes anymore, it stays, lurking around the corner.

It's no longer recognisable - the fear. Whether it's the insomnia or what woke him, it's all the same and he's just afraid. All the time now, he's afraid.

Tonight is bad. Terrible. The absolute worst. He slept too long and she died, over and over again in an infinite loop of madness. Scene after scene of horror. Things that make sense and things that don't. Thing's he cannot fathom.

The bed was left behind hours ago; crumpled, sweaty sheets tossed aside and left victim to his terror.

He's knotted up in his chair, alcohol and adrenaline swirling into a volatile numbing agent but the pain is real. Everything still hurts and he's terrified. He's burning.

He's halfway drowned in whiskey and his body is heavy. Too heavy. His eyes slip closed and it's an awful mistake.

Everything is out of sequence. Fleeting images that make no sense before they settle. Then he's there, marching in some line and pivoting on his mark. He feels the sharp edges of a placard he's holding out in front of him. He sees the bleary shapes of the others, lined up on his right and left, holding up placards of their own. They look like him, fatter, thinner, taller or shorter versions of him.

She's on the other side of the mirrored glass.

He sees her see him, though that makes no sense. Then he _is_ her. It's through her eyes and he's seeing himself. The lights come on and he recognises the scene. A line up. He sees the numbered men, all variations of him. 1, 2, 3 and then there's him. There's no number 4 on his board, only two words.

 _I'm sorry_.

She raises a gun, or he does, as her. He raises a gun and aims at himself. He pulls the trigger and suddenly the bullet is going through him. Going through her as him or him as her. Ricocheting off the glass and piercing her chest, knocking her back.

The mirror turns suddenly and he's back in his own body, looking in from the outside, watching the life drain from her in vibrant red. Again.

He looks down and there's blood splattered over his board. The mirror is gone, the words have changed. _Please stay_.

She's trying to say something but he can't hear. He sees the shape of his name forming on her lips and he tries to reach her but they're holding him back. Short, tall, fat, skinny versions of him all pull him away. He fights, kicks and fits and cries out for her.

"Kate!"

His ragged voice screams out in his office and his echo strikes him in the back of the head. It knocks him forward as his eyes open wide on a startled gasp. The ceramic slips from his fingers.

There's a transient moment of stillness, of calm. The smallest instant before the mug crashes to the floor and shatters.

He drops hard, panic licking hot up his spine. His knees connect first and then his chin presses to the floorboards, body scrambling desperately under his desk.

The stairs thunder and he moves fast. His hands come out, palms landing on splintered pieces of his fallen mug and pulling him out of the suffocating space. He scampers across the floor and presses his back against the wall.

Blood. It registers, but, his blood or her blood? _Kate_.

He's dizzy, sweating, too cold. He's choking and his chest is getting tighter and tighter. There's movement, it's light and dark again and he's trapped. He's suspended in some hellish third space, some in-between dreams and reality and his looping madness is flashing in-front of him.

 _Kate. Kate. Kate_.

It feels like there's something in the room. Something dark closing in on him with teeth but he can't look. He can't move.

Awake but not awake. The fear is debilitating.

His whole body is trembling against the wall. He's gasping as he sobs. "Kate. Kate. Kate…"


	8. Chapter 8

He's buried in shadows, folded over himself as wicked light seeps in through the cracks of his spined walls. It slashes the room in thin streaks but it's enough to make out the line of his shoulders, the slope of his nose, the sharp stroke of his jaw.

It's enough to press the air out of her lungs as she watches the hopeless rise and fall of him, chest pushing up and away from the wall and falling back again, too rapid for real breath. Her chest stutters with the movement as she inches around his desk, her body somehow always in mid-search of him.

Her socked toe dips into a pool of spilt whiskey and she startles at the shock of cold. The terrible smell of it rushes up from the darkness and knocks her back as wave after wave of bitter memories surge up, crashing violently against her teeth. She gags and sucks in a harsh breath, hungry for clean air.

Warm fingers wrap around her elbow, pulling her gently from the choking grip of the past. "Darling, are you okay?"

Martha's voice is warm, concerned, motherly. It's too much. She nods slowly and pulls out of her gentle grasp, stepping further into the space. She clears the far edge of his desk and slips into its drowning shadow with him.

"Castle?" She chokes.

Nothing.

"Rick?" She whispers, tender like a kiss.

Nothing.

The muteness is stinging and she's trembling. She twists over her shoulder and watches his mother's silhouetted form, wilting away under the defeat of silence.

Martha turns her face down and a single tear catches the light of the kitchen. "Darling, I'm sorry, I thought… but maybe you should -"

"No," Kate cuts in, the unspoken _go, you should go_ , bending her spine.

"Please," She protests meekly. "I think… I mean, like you said, maybe if I just talk to him or…" she tries. The words suddenly run dry, all the rushing energy that brought her here slips away and she sighs. "Please, Martha."

His mother battles against the fierce instinct to protect her son, her little boy despite his age, despite it being his roof now. Her gaze flits between the hunching girl and her son, crumpled on the floor and weeping, silently now, but still only for her. Still her. Uncertainty fills her veins but she nods once, decisively. "Be careful," she whispers, closing the door behind her and praying it is right.

The door sucks up a little more of the light and locks it away on the outside with every sound. Kate's hand comes out to the edge of the desk, fingers trailing along the carved border as a guide to him.

Her socks soak through but she shuffles along, wincing as the arch of her foot comes down on the edge of a broken away handle, setting it rocking from side to side with a few angry clunks against the floor.

The sound ripples through her and a corresponding jerk catches his spine. "Sorry," she mutters, "Sorry."

She settles down in front of him, legs crossed and shoulders curling in. Down here, sheltered away behind the desk, there is light only to see that he does not see. There is no hint of recognition, no reaction to the closeness of her body and that small loss is near unbearable.

Her shaking fingers flick out to run over the sharp jut of his knee but she pulls them back, tucks them all under her thighs.

"Rick, it's me. Kate," she says quietly, choking over her own name or the fact that he needs it now.

Nothing.

"I'm just going to sit here. With you. Talk, probably."

She raises her eyes, up and over him, passed the hands wrapped tight around his calves and pulling his knees to his chest, passed the press of his chin to his ribs and the curl of his shoulders, passed the tangled mess of his hair and his hidden eyes. She fixes her gaze above him, on the framed staircase, and breathes through the silence.

She tips her head back and swallows the tears.

"So," she starts and falters. There's nothing to say. Everything to say. Weeks on weeks of things to say. Years, if she's being honest, but none of it is right.

Filling up silences and moving them from one moment to the next - she's always relied on him for that, even before she started _relying_ on him and she's useless. She's all sharp tongue and voicelessness.

The dizzying, spiralling staircase looms over her, drawing her into its fading centre.

She clears her throat and tries again. "You know, when I was a kid, my mum used to get migraines," she says. The words come slow with thick rolls of her tongue like she's still practising the art of speaking and she's not entirely sure where they are going or which one comes next, but they feel like the right thing.

She's shaky and uncertain but the words are stacking up, filling her mouth. "My dad used to close all the curtains and turns off all the lights." Her voice smooths out as the soft memory of home builds. "My mom would hole up in her room but he would insist on the entire place being in darkness," she chuckles, "it was as if he thought that he could block out the rest of the world, trick her into thinking it had stopped spinning just for a moment, so she could rest. It sounds silly, but she was stubborn, Castle, she wouldn't stop unless he forced her into nothingness."

Hazy images of her childhood living room curl up around her and soften the edges of her voice. He doesn't say anything and she can't be sure that he hears but after a long moment their bodies slow. His breathing lengthens and hers stretches out to meet it.

"Anyway," she continues hesitantly as her gaze comes back to the now steady rise and fall of him, "My dad and I would sit like this. We'd curl up on the floor and he'd whisper stories to me," she smiles around the sweetness of the memory, "they were stories my mom probably knew, now that I'm thinking about it, but, I don't know, Rick, something about it felt so secret back then."

His body loosens slightly, shoulders slumping further down the wall and feet skidding out closer to her shins, colour running back to his fingertips as they drop to his sides.

 _Be Careful_. The warning swims around and around.

The memory's been tipping out of her effortlessly and it's the right thing, it's what she wants to tell him but it's not entirely what she wants to say. It's only part of what she wants him to hear.

"It was like we'd go off to this space where it was just he and I and nothing else existed," she breathes.

His body continues to unravel slowly as the words catch him. His knees drop down and his ankles cross in a mirror of her but his chin still presses hard to his chest.

Her fingers twitch restlessly beneath her, excited little digits eager to reach out for him.

 _Be Careful_.

"There was one time, I was in high school," she continues quietly, slowly, "I had been crying the whole way home and he knew, of course, as soon as I walked in the door. He must have asked me what was wrong at least forty times but I kept saying I was fine… of course."

She brings her hands into her lap, watching as her fingers twist up into a tight knot. "My mum wasn't even home that day, but I remember watching him silently walking around, closing all the curtains and turning all the lights off behind him."

She sweeps a curl out of her face, tucks it behind her ear and presses her fingers back beneath her, "He grabbed my hand and dragged me down to the floor right in the middle of the living room," she swallows thickly, "he started talking and I started crying. I didn't even know what he was saying, in fact, I'm not even sure _he_ knew what he was saying. He just talked and talked, for hours… until I laughed."

They both lift their heads and she catches the sparking of embers in him. Determined light lifts up, away, writhes to leap into who he is and it sets her on fire.

She smiles gently and lays her hand palm up between their crossed legs.

His breathe catches and his eyes drop down to the movement.

 _Be Careful_. _Be Careful_. _Be Careful._

She turns her next words over and over under her tongue. She weighs them up and contemplates nervously over the worth of the all the things between the lines.

She breathes with him, slowly, deliberately, and finally whispers, "We never spoke about it."

The words settle between them, heavy with promise, heavy with the beauty of them despite the destruction. His chin presses back to his chest, his shoulders fold in and for a long moment she worries. An apology rises up in her throat, but his fingers twitch at his thigh and she stills.

He reaches out, fingertips slowly pressing between hers. The relief is overwhelming. She wraps her fingers around his and turns her face down, tears silently running over her cheeks.

The warmth of him runs through her fingertips and she uses the single point of contact as an anchor. She takes a few deep breathes and keeps the promise she only half made.

It's easier than she expects it to be.

Talking and talking.

She fills up the silence with every stupid detail that he's missed. The words bubble up and spill out of her, like they've been waiting for him somewhere. They have, she supposes. Mundane things. Small, silly things that had her reaching for her phone and pulling back again. Irrelevant things. She's missed him.

His presence is evanescent. Every fragmented second of grounded clarity is momentous as she rambles on and on, waiting for him to settle back into himself, into this one solid moment. He comes and goes; she squeezes his fingers a little tighter and keeps her voice quiet.

She's whingeing when it happens, some number of whispered stories later. "Captain Victoria Gates," she says, "A.K.A Iron Gates." She's complaining about the changes, about having Ex-IA blood at the top of the food chain, when he smirks.

His fingers squeeze back and she freezes, her body goes rigid with hope.

"Gates," the name rumbles out of him, rough and deep, scratch by the remnants of terror, "you think she'll like me?"

Kate's head drops forward and all the air rushes out of her in a loud, relieved chuckle that washes over their tangled fingertips. "No." She smiles.


	9. Chapter 9

They stay like that, suspended for a long moment before his fingers stretch out, twisting around between hers to press their hands together. Palm to palm.

He winces as her skin presses to his and jerks his hand sharply away.

Kate startles, brow furrowing in confusion until she feels the warm trickle of his blood on her own palm.

"Jesus," she hisses.

Her thin fingers move quickly, darting out to wrap around his wrist and pull his palm up into a slit of light. It's enough to see a few small gashes and his palm smudged with blood.

He goes silent and she reaches out to bring his other palm into the light. "Shit, Castle, you should go to the hospital and get this checked out."

He wrenches his wrists from her grip and lifts his chin. "Why, so your boyfriend can stitch me up?" he snaps. It's a terrible thing to say and he regrets it immediately. He drops his eyes to his lap and shakes his head.

"We broke up."

His head snaps back to her and his mouth hangs open. He's gaping and he wants to say something. Apologise, he thinks, but the words don't come.

"Kate, I - "

"Look, Castle - "

They speak at the same time.

He sweeps his bloodied palm out between them and nods, gestures for her to go on, as though there is some hope of gentlemanly redemption here.

Kate sighs, chin dropping as she looks to her hands, fingers picking at a loose thread on her jeans. "You need to get that cleaned up."

He swallows and pulls his hands away from the insistent streams of light. "It's nothing a couple of bandages can't fix."

"Fine. Where's your first-aid kit?" She presses, though her eyes stay trained on the thread she tugs.

"You don't have to do that, Kate. I'm fine on my own." He coughs out, though it's not even close to what he wants to say.

She sweeps a hand through her hair, pushes it up and away from her face. She pins him with a aching gaze. "I know I don't have to, Castle, and maybe you are. Fine on your own, that is. But I," she pauses, frustrated by the game every word has become between them, "I'm your partner."

It's intentional, a deliberate and measured thing, it's all the times she's told him to go and he's played the _partner_ card like a full stop. It's final and desperate and a last resort.

He sighs and nods. "En suite. Under the sink. Light switches are on that wall," he says, pointing toward his bedroom.

[x]

"I'm turning the light on."

His face scrunches, lips pursed and eyes clenched against the honey light pouring out overhead. He blinks, over and over, sharp fleeting flickers until the burn of new light simmers down and his lids peel open, focus slowly clearing.

He swallows thickly at the illuminated havoc his terror wreaked, his office turned into some misplaced scene that looks like the dirty tragedy of after the after party. He looks away, down to his hands, bloody palms looking back at him.

He listens to Kate wordlessly picking up a few scattered ceramic shards and tossing them into the trashcan beneath his desk. He shrinks away at his cowardice, can't even bear the thought of seeing her see it all.

Her socked toes, stained dark with rising damp, come into view and shame rises hot and fast over his cheeks. He closes his eyes.

She folds back down in-front of him. Legs crossed and knee to knee with him as she drops the first aid kit beside them and his lips quiver with a strangled plea, he's desperate to ask her to go, _please, Kate, just go_ but when he opens his eyes they catch on the smallest of all these tragic details and he derails.

"Kind of fitting that it slashed through my life-line," he mutters wryly. It's morbid and awful, another terrible thing to say. He moves to apologise but it dies on his lips as a dark chuckle rumbles out of her.

She bites down on the sound; nonetheless, his sardonicism is catching. "You like the imagery of it all, huh?" She blurts before she can filter the thought. It really is a _terrible_ thing.

Her dry mirth hooks into the left corner of his mouth and tugs it up into a smirk. "It's a nice touch," he shrugs, "All good stories get the details right."

His eyes come back to her and widen at the way her soft smile eats up all the light. He's missed her; the crooked way she half hides her amusement, the clear focus of her eyes, the innate heated brilliance spilling out of her.

Kate blinks, ducking away from his piercing gaze and dipping closer to his palms. She tugs them forward by the finger tips, from his crossed ankles to hers."You know, I've always been curious about them," she says, voice as soft as the light that poured out of her half-smile. She lifts his left palm, cradles it in the cup of her own, close to her chin as she sighs, "Life-lines." She rests the back of his palm on her knee and sifts through the first-aid kit.

"Ah," he nods, "the rivers of my palms. I thought you didn't believe in that stuff."

She twists back to him, tweezers raised between them in triumph and he pulls his hand quickly back to his chest with a frown. "Oh, man up, Castle. I'll be gentle," she teases.

He huffs and thrusts his hand back at her like a small boy, ostensibly brave.

She smothers the smirk pulling at her lips as he pouts, once again cradling his hand gently in hers and shuffling in closer to him. Her cold, wet toes press into his shins and he bristles. "Ready?" She asks, eyes tipping up to him and back again.

He nods and they both dip closer to his wounded palm. His head knocks into hers and she glares. He sits back. Her brow furrows and her thumb flicks out, hooking around his to pull his palm flatter. "The rivers of my palms? I like that," she whispers, catching a small shard in the tweezers.

He grits his teeth as she tugs it free. "Me too. It's not mine, but it's… intriguing," he breathes, watching as she sets the free shard in the trashcan behind her and turns back, gently gripping a larger piece.

"The rivers of my palms," she repeats, like she's tasted the words before, rolling them around in her mouth to pick the flavour. "I think - _Hicok_?"

He sucks in a sharp breath and she looks up, worried, but his smile is bright and unexpected… contagious.

"What?" She questions shyly.

"Nothing," he shakes his head, smile loosening, "I just didn't peg you for a Bob Hicok kind of girl, Detective."

The lines around her eyes go soft, a pink blush rushes up high over her fragile cheekbones and she twists away to drop the last shard into the trashcan. She turns back to him with a grin. "Layers, Castle."

He meets her gaze and there's a glint of something mischievous there. Something entirely Kate. _Dangerous_ , he thinks. Terrifying.

"So," he clears his throat, drops his eyes back to his palm in hers, "is that what made you curious? Hicok and his other dimensions, the left palm living longer than the right."

She rests it gently back on her knee. "No," she sighs and goes back to digging through the kit, "It was… in college."

The snag in her speech, the hesitation, catches his attention; it brings his eyes back to her and the soft pink hue creeping down her neck and fanning out over her chest. The hairs on his forearms stand up with the ecstatic energy rushing through him. "Oh my god, Beckett, you had your palm read!" He exclaims. "What did she say?" He barks out, too eager to wait for a response.

Kate chuckles over his easy enthusiasm and something of herself settles back low in stomach after all these weeks. She flicks her eyes over him, debating how much she ought to share but he's smiling, really smiling, and she can't resist the fierce urge to give him more.

" _He_ said, he could tell from this spot right here," she finally speaks, raising her right palm between them and circling her finger over the space just above her thumb, "that I was a control freak."

He squeaks and she's glares again. "Sorry," he snorts, "What else did he say?"

An inferno rages through her ribcage and her cheeks go up in flames. He worries then, drops his eyes away as if it's okay if this is over, as if he's sorry, and he is, he feels sorry suddenly.

Her fingers curl tight around her ankles, their hands an alternating pattern over the length of her crossed legs. "Something about my head and my heart lines never converging," she whispers. She lifts her head, looks him in the eye and rushes on as all the air gathers up in his tired chest. "That _love_ , a _real_ relationship, would be a battle. I think, civil war, is what he said."

The words burst open and it's another bloodied thing lying between them. New and old hurts rippling up to the surface to bear their ugly faces.

 _You could be happy, Kate, you deserve to be happy but you're afraid_.

He blinks first and she swallows thickly, eyes going back to the first aid kit. Her drained fingers uncurl and reach in for a couple of alcohol swabs. She tears one open and goes to his wounded palm with smooth clean strokes.

He hisses and her thumb streaks out over his wrist in a wide, soothing ark. "Sorry," she whispers, easing the pressure a little to wipe the remaining blood away. "Anyway, it was the other way around; the curiosity took me to Hicok."

She tosses the stained swabs in the trash and presses two thin strips of gauze over the deepest gashes, taping them down with gentle, easy movements. Her thumbs smooth out over the plump base of his palm and the thin streaking veins running up his wrist. "There," she breathes, lowering his mended hand back to her crossed ankles and lifting the next one to her other knee.

His lungs strain under the intimacy of the way she cares for him, the gentle touch and kind affection in every tender movement.

"I was reading about life-lines and the art of palm reading," she continues as she reaches for another bunch of alcohol swabs. "I was a different girl back then, remember," she defends, looking up with the expectancy of a smirking Castle, but he's not even looking at her, he's intently following every glide of her fingers over his weeping, ripped skin.

She nudges his shin with her toes and his eyes snap back to hers. "That's how I stumbled across Hicok and kind of fell in love with the idea of other dimensions. Parallel universes where all the little things went a different way," she smiles wistfully, "I like the idea of it."

The fingers of his bandaged hand turn, curling around her ankle like an anchor. "The idea," he repeats, still learning the ropes of this conversation, "of different theres and elsewheres?"

"Exactly. Especially, I mean, I didn't know it then but it would help me… after my mom," she says quietly, going back to her work with nimble fingers and tunnelled concentration.

The images swirl up around him, a different there or elsewhere for her, some sister universe where her mother was never late for that dinner and her father was still the man on the lounge room floor, putting her back together in the dark. He physically aches for that girl, or the stolen possibility of her.

"Yeah," he croaks, "It helps. It definitely helps."

Her eyes spring up at the crack in his voice, brows furrowed in question.

"The idea of little universes for all the asphyxiated _what ifs_ to breathe," he clarifies.

It's heavy, the thought or the expression.

"That's not-"

"Not Hicok, no, that's just… me, I guess," he sighs, tearing his eyes from her.

She nods thoughtfully, discarding a used swab and tearing free another.

"It helps me too," he admits, more to himself.

"Good," she says, eyes coming up to him and diving back to her steady, cleansing strokes, "Good."

Silence settles over them, viscous and warm, as Kate plasters Band-Aids over the small nicks littering his fleshy palm and tapes one last strip of gauze around the thick of his thumb. She settles his hand back on her ankle, next to the one he has curled around the jut of bone there, but his fingers flick out to snag hers before they can escape.

Her shoulders slump and she tangles their fingers together, her weary body finally coming to rest for a quiet moment as her other hand sweeps up and down his forearm before curling lightly around his wrist.

"He's right you know," Castle murmurs softly, after following Kate's stretched out blink and contented sigh, "some things would be a mistake in any life, in each place and forever."

Their shining gazes catch, fingers tangling a little more tightly together as the words settle over them, weighty with every _what if_ they've strangled the life from, all the hopeless things they'll never be able to resurrect.

She feels the heaviness of it cracking her ribcage and is overwhelmed by a desperate ache to reach out and touch his face, feel the line of his jaw pressed between her fingers and the ridge of his cheekbone painted onto her thumb.

It's a loaded thing, the allusion to universal mistakes, and some courageous part of her, some desperate keening part wants to unpack it, she wants to _ask_ him. Some shaking, rattling part swallows the question.

She looks down and unravels their joined hands, swallowing thickly at the slump of his body. "I should go," she says, pressing her palms to the floor behind her and straightening out her limbs.

He rises with her. He tries to rise with her, but his toes crack, his ankles, knees, elbows; His hips ache and his body stumbles. The streak running the length of his ribcage burns with unprecedented ferocity and his chest closes in.

He gasps and reaches for the wall but she's there. Shouldered under his arm and banded around his waist, palm warming the skin of his hip. "Easy, Rick. Slow down, slow down," she's whispering into his shoulder as the lasts of his energy drains straight out underneath him. His arm comes down heavy around her shoulder, cheek dropping to the crown of her head as his knees buckle. "Okay. You're okay," she says, shuffling around to press him gently back into his desk chair.

Exhaustion sets in fast and aching as it always does, shooting searing pain through every nerve as his whole body trembles and tenses, warring with itself. She's hunched over him, standing between his knees with a hand buried in his hair and her cheek pressed to his temple. As his breathing slowly evens out he makes out the end of a string of her words, the rest lost to the torrents of his own blood."... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

His shaking little finger reaches out and curls into the belt loop of her jeans, tugs. "Beckett," he breathes.

Her body tips back, levelling her face with his as her fingers slip from his hair and curl loosely around his ear. "Not. Your. Fault," he pants between still heaving breaths.

Her fingers tighten around the shell of his ear and she sighs, the pain and guilt spreading over her face just another burning thing. "You should go, Beckett," he manages to whisper, finger dropping from her pants and balling up with the others.

"Castle - "

"No, _please_ , Kate," he pleads, insists, eyes dropping to floor beyond her.

Her nails drop from his ear in defeat, scraping over the thin skin of his heated neck as she steps back.

"I'll call you," he says.

Her body goes rigid. Her eyes cloud over and the colour drains from her lips as soon as the words reach her.

"Tomorrow," he quickly amends, revelling in his physical pain as a deserved punishment for such immense stupidity, "Tomorrow, Kate."

She nods, trails her fingers over his knee cap as she steps around the desk, but her eyes are sunken with disbelief and something like loss.

"Beckett," he calls out to her just as she reaches for the handle, "Thank you."

She smiles back at him over her shoulder, but it's a timid, wary little thing. "Until tomorrow, Castle." She shrugs.

* * *

A/N - Reference: Bob Hicok, 'Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally a Love Poem'


	10. Chapter 10

"Beckett," her voice sighs out over the line and he chokes.

She pinches the bridge of her nose and pulls her phone into view to find his name crawling lazily across the screen.

"Castle?" her voice rushes out to him suddenly, demanding and alive, "you okay?"

He hears the familiar squeak and scratching roll of her desk chair, then the sharp, measured fall of her heels. The frantic, clipped edge to every sound pulls him back to her.

"Yes. Yeah. I'm fine," he stutters as the drawn out squeal of the break-room door falls behind her, "Are _you_ okay?"

The pounding rhythm of her stride suddenly falls silent. "Me?"

"You just sounded a little… off," he explains, moving closer to the window's sweeping city and her.

"Oh," she sighs, deflating onto the cracking leather beneath her, "I'm… yeah, I'm fine."

"Beckett," he warns and hears her body shifting on the break-room couch, stubbornly angling herself away from his voice no doubt.

"How bad is it?" he prods, "The case."

There's a beat of silence and a contemplated lie before the air spills from her lungs and she finally whispers, "Bad, it's quite bad."

His palm and forehead press into the cool glass, body suddenly heavy and breath leaving clouds over the city. His eyes close and he's six again, folding himself up like a flightless paper crane onto the windowsill of their studio apartment, imagining the song of his mother's voice ringing into the night and reaching out for her.

"I think I just…" Kate chokes out and he opens his eyes, "need to get out of here for a while," she finishes.

"Coffee?" he offers, instinctively.

She blinks down at her watch. "Yeah. Coffee would be great," a little smile lifts her voice, "The White Horse?"

Suddenly the sun beating down on the window is burning his palm. He pulls away as his chest tightens and pops the top button of his shirt, fanning the collar out over his flushed skin. His breath is strangled but that small smile in her voice wrenches the words from him. "Sure, meet you in twenty."

[x]

She catches the taught line of his shoulders as she rushes past the window and presses through the heavy, wooden framed glass door with its galloping white horse stretching across the centre. The small bell overhead rings gently with her arrival and his head snaps toward the sound.

It's not the type of place that gets loud even at its fullest. A narrow, long space that would better qualify as a corridor, all soft sound and light, warmed with coffee and spice. It's quaint, and _artsy_ , he called it, rarely full but always scattered with young sparking hopefuls. _It helps sometimes, to remember how I started_ , he'd said the first time.

He's stiff and wide eyed as she breathlessly swings herself into the small booth and plonks down onto the cushioned bench opposite him, but by the time she raises her head and puffs out a "Hey, Castle," his body is sinking into the cushion as a soft smile blooms over his face.

"You didn't need to rush," he chuckles as she roughly swipes her hair away from her forehead.

"I know," she pants, pausing to catch her breath, "but you said twenty minutes and I figured -"

"Your coffee would get cold," he finishes for her, pushing a steaming mug across the little wooden table and into her palm as she nods.

He watches as her fingers wrap all the way around the bowled mug, captured by the way her lips curl into a soft O and her breath ripples out over the surface, steam billowing out toward him as her eyes drop closed and she savours the first taste.

His lungs open wide when her lips curl up into the grateful smile he waits for, because this, the smallness of buying her coffee and seeing her smile is momentous now and his gratitude for the moment catches him off guard.

"You're…" she says, oblivious to his stunned amazement at the curve of her lips and nodding to the strawberry milkshake in his hand.

"Not allowed to have coffee yet," he supplies.

She winces; face scrunching up with a hiss as though she can feel his pain. "Ouch," she murmurs.

He shrugs, says, "Could be worse."

She raises an eyebrow in disbelief but he waits for her to take another sip of her coffee before he continues, " _You_ could be the one deprived of coffee, then we'd _all_ have a real problem."

She splutters over her coffee and drags the back of her hand over her lips to get to a scowl. It lights him up, the crinkle between her brows and her soft pout, the way her glare glistens before she purses her lips and gives in, rolling her eyes.

His smile breaks wide open and she buries hers quickly behind her mug, but it's a stretching thing, lifting up above the rim and her eyes turn bright despite the bruising shadows beneath them.

"I don't think I could handle a decaffeinated Beckett," he mutters bravely around his straw.

She laughs then, honest and loud enough to turn the heads of the only other occupied booth. It's a bright sound, sparking up over the soft music playing overhead. Her head tips to the side and she grins as she lowers her mug back to the scarred table before pegging him with a serious gaze. "Does that mean you think you can handle me now, Castle?" She smirks.

He inhales his milkshake, snorts and chokes, thick tongue flailing around to press his straw away as she innocently diverts her gaze. She casually takes in the café with its chalkboard walls, rich wooden booths with thick cream cushions and low hanging clusters of recycled jar lights, as though she hasn't been here a hundred times before.

A hard cough racks through his body and he winces. He presses a hand to his side to contain the sharp sting and the smirk drops from her face. Her warmed fingers curl over his forearm atop the table, squeezing. "Sorry, sorry," she whispers.

He forces a chuckle, even though it pains him. "Can't believe you fell for that," he breathes unsteadily.

She squints at him, disbelieving but willing, for now, fingers slipping from his arm and slapping at his hand. "Ca-stle!" she whines and lets him go.

Daniel, the bearded, scraggly owner scuttles up to their table. "Ah, I was told my favourite NYPD and... just NY, customers were in today," he says jovially, placing a large plate piled high with tea sandwiches and beer battered chips between them.

He reaches out and lays his hand gently on Castle's shoulder. "We're glad to see you, Rick. It's on the house today," he says, voice quietened with gentility.

Castle's body goes rigid with the contact, his breath hitches and his eyes lose focus for a fleeting moment before he swallows thickly and manages an accepting nod and strained smile.

Kate's brow furrows, deep lines pressing into her eyes as her writhing fingers burrow under her thigh. "Thanks, Dan," She smiles kindly, compensatory, watching him shuffle off.

She turns back to find Castle with his head bowed, mouthing steady numbers under his breath.

"Rick," she begins but he lifts his head and meets her with pleading eyes that slowly drop away.

He pins down a second and another, gathering himself and pulling the ragged edges of his voice together. "You, uh, didn't sound like you'd remember to eat today, so I just…" he says, pushing the plate toward her with a self-conscious shrug.

Her heart stutters in her chest. _He's_ taking care of _her_ , even now, despite the way it's costing him, and the normalcy of that is devastating.

"Thanks," she whispers, dutifully ignoring the stiffness still lingering in his chest and the way his gaze won't come back to her now, "Thanks, Castle."

She eats eagerly because he's right, of course he is; she doesn't remember the last time she remembered a proper meal. His muscles slowly uncoil as he watches her devour the sandwiches as though it's been days. It hasn't, he hopes.

His smile stretches open as she pulls him into story after story, weightless moments that he missed and things she says the boys' reminded her to tell him, precinct gossip she usually pretends she doesn't know.

She's almost eaten the entire plate when her hand pauses halfway to her mouth, fry hovering mid-air as her focus drops out the window and her face goes slack. It only takes half a moment for him to lose her completely and he misses her in the instant she goes.

"Penny for your thoughts, Detective?" His voice finally filters through her spiralling mind, full and rich and recovered.

She startles and brings her eyes back to him. "They'd cost more than a penny, Castle," she says with a diversionary smile, dropping the fry back to the plate and pushing it away.

"I'm a millionaire, Beckett," he deadpans.

She hears the insistence beneath his tone, the _need,_ but still, the silence consumes them. She wriggles on the bench beneath his dissecting, concerned gaze for a long moment before she breaks the hungry silence.

"I was nineteen, Castle, and this little girl, she's only ten. I mean, how will she, I can't even…"

His shoulders curl and his jaw twitches opposite her. "Ten," he repeats despondently, "I - "

She's looking at him with such faith, so much expectancy in her gaze and he sighs, entirely helpless as he reaches out to lay his fingers over hers.

"I'm sorry." It's all he has.

"Yeah," she whispers, avoiding the bandaged places to gently squeeze his hand, "yeah, me too."

They're sitting there, staring at each other, hands clasped and so far from here, when Kate's phone vibrates angrily on the table.

His knuckles go white around hers, grinding their bones together as the sudden pounding of his blood pulses through her skin.

Her lungs collapse and burst open as she watches his spine snap taught, eyes glaze over and chest rise and fall in heavy waves. Her body goes rigid, matching his for a moment, then two, before she scrambles for the phone and pulls it to her ear, eyes still focused on him.

"Beckett," she chokes and then she's agreeing, "yeah, yeah I can." Her thumb sweeps out over his in wide arcs circling to his palm and back.

"No, I'll go… it's, uh, not… not far from here," she stutters through a half-conversation, attention entirely consumed by him.

"I'll call you back, Espo," she grunts suddenly, dropping the phone onto the cushion beside her.

Her hand comes up to cradle the weight of his between her palms. "Castle," she calls gently to him, both thumbs sweeping over his paled skin.

"Rick," she whispers after a beat of silence, breath catching as his eyes come back to hers slowly.

She watches his white lips as he swallows thickly and his thumb curls instinctively around hers, holding on. "Come on," she says, tugging on his hand, "I'll take you home."

She turns back to him at the door. "You okay?"

He drops her hand then, wiping his sweaty palm against his jeans before shoving both his hands into his pockets. He nods once, decisively. "Fine. I'm fine," he croaks.

Her gaze runs over him, a long lingering line down his chest, across the length of his shoulders and back to his eyes. She pauses, lip tucked between her teeth and fingers stretching out to him before changing course and reaching for the handle behind her. She too, nods once, confidently, and that helps. Her confidence helps.

They're only in that fragile moment for five stuttering heartbeats before everything caves in around them. A siren screams sharply as a patrol car skips the corner and her world is rapidly spinning. He's suddenly got her by the back of her shirt and her body is twisting, slamming into his hard as his arms clamp around her waist, across her shoulder blades, and turn to stone.

Her chest cramps up as his ribcage presses her relentlessly between his thundering chest and the vice of his arms. Her legs are tangled with his and her forehead presses into his heated neck, his pulse pounding out a terrified rhythm into her hair.

The sun beats down on their sweating bodies, knotted together in the middle of the too busy sidewalk and she blocks out the tempo of the street, all the people rushing carelessly by with their sharp elbows and angry conversations; focussing wholly on slowing their bodies, his and hers or hers and his.

Her breathing stretches out, dragging his along until his arms loosen slightly around her and his fingers gentle against her back. Her fists unclench, fingers running in soothing, gentle lines, up and down his chest as she mouths against his neck, "That's it, just slow down. Slow down, Rick. You're okay..."

Her tongue goes loose with the endless string of words until his words break over hers, cracked and defeated. He tips his head down to drop them in her ear. "I'm sorry."

"No." she whispers, head knocking against his jaw and fingers grasping onto his collar to keep him with her, "No, don't be sorry."

She feels the soft skitter of his fingertips up and down her spine as he inhales her before untangling himself and stepping away with his head bowed like a sick dog, begging, leave me outside.

She clenches her eyes against the desolation of it and wraps her fingers around his wrist, resolute. "Don't be sorry," she whispers again, tugging him to her cruiser.

[x]

Her gaze flickers between his rattling frame and the quickest route to his loft, his leg's shaking ceaselessly as his eyes dart about in dizzying search of some stable point in a constantly rushing city.

She settles her palm on his thigh, runs up and down the length of it until the shaking settles and she hears him sigh softly. "Just close your eyes," she says quietly, keeping hers on the road.

A few blocks pass in silence as his clenched eyes slowly relax under the hot sun into an almost sleep. "The days are the worst," he mumbles, "too many people. Noises."

"What about the nights?" she asks, throat tight.

His whole body huffs, lifting and falling in a frustrated wave beside her. "Nights are easier, but it still happens… sometimes. Sometimes it's still too much."

She turns to him but his head is still tipped back, eyes closed and words pouring out of him in exhaustion.

Her hand curls tighter around his leg, five desperate points of contact to make him stay.

"I could come, if you want," she offers softly and his eyes pop open, searching for her.

"You don't - "

"I want to," she cuts him off, it's loud and entirely too eager, her cheeks flame. He opens his mouth to argue but she rushes on, "You can feed me and I can walk you," she tries to deal.

His eyes go wide and she worries in the instant before a genuine chuckle tumbles out of him. "I'm not your dog, Beckett," he whines in mock offence, silly smile plumping his cheeks.

She laughs, caught off guard by what she should have seen coming, but her laugh drops into a wicked smirk before he can relish in it. "Maybe not, but I told you years ago, Castle, you're the strangest pet I've ever had," she teases, laying a completely unapologetic tap on his thigh and leaving him to pout.

A long, buzzing strip of overflowing shops and cafes rushes by them before he speaks again, voice soft now with disbelief. "You're really going to walk me?" He asks.

Her smile turns soft then, kind and honest. "Really."

She's bracing herself for some _lap_ dog comment but it doesn't come and when she sweeps her eyes over him he's solemn. Raw. "Thank you," he murmurs genuinely, before fixing his gaze out the window and slowly tangling his fingers in hers.

[x]

"You were writing?" She questions, placing her glass of water down on his coffee table next to a worn out leather bound notebook and shuffling back into the couch.

He springs forward at the mention of it, panicked hands defensively flicking the book closed and pulling it into his lap as he flops back into his arm chair. He winces with the abrupt movement and her body jerks in surprise.

"Nikki?" she prods, brow furrowed as she watches him slowly catch his breath.

"Ah… no," he puffs, "Not Nikki."

Her eyebrows raise in question, lips twisting in impatient demand and he sighs, tipping his head back. Focus settling on the ceiling.

"Kate," he mumbles finally, "I was writing Kate."

"K-ate?" She stumbles over her own name, something about his softness, the defeat in the way he said her name, making her brave or stupid.

"You -" _drown me_ , he almost spills, tiredness clouding over his careful filter, "um… sometimes it's difficult to separate the two of you and Nikki's not… anyway, it's just easier, I suppose, to hear Nikki without Kate, so I scribble Kate down on her own page," he admits earnestly, bracing for impact.

"It's never anything complete," he continues in a smaller voice, when she doesn't respond, "usually just a word or string of words that belong more to you than her."

Kate sucks in a shaky breath. "Like what?" she whispers, more stupid than brave.

He drops his chin and brings his eyes back to her, sparkling brightly with some defensive façade. "A magician never reveals his tricks, Detective," he smirks, smarmy and desperate in his deflection.

"You think your work is magic, Mr Castle?" She questions, dropping her voice into interrogation territory just to see him squirm.

He shrugs nonchalantly, ever the playboy, even now. "I hear it's a popular opinion."

She snorts, rolling her eyes, more at herself these days because she can't believe he can still flip her so quickly. "Maybe I should go, Castle, I don't think there is enough room for both myself and your ego in this loft," she replies sharply.

He laughs then, deep and rumbling and tipping his head back. It's reflexive and easy and for that single, suspended moment, it's _them,_ battling to knock each other over and savouring the stupid fall.

Those stolen echoes of who they were desert them now in silence and Kate sighs, words dropping from her lips before she really knows them. "Sometimes it feels like you leave some Kate things in the books."

He turns back to her, surprised, she supposes, by her overtness. "Yeah," he says, swallowing thickly, "sometimes Nikki needs them."

His body slumps in the armchair, spine at all awkward angles and sleepy eyes straining to stay with her.

"Hmm," she hums, dislodging any thoughts as to what that _really_ means, "I should go, Castle."

"You don't have to," he tries, but his eyes are drooping despite himself and his words are dropping away, hazy at the ends.

She smiles softly, head tilting toward him. "You're exhausted, Rick," she says, pushing on as his mouth opens on the end of some failing protest, "Yes, you are. Anyway, I have to get back to work."

He huffs, pouts for good effect and then finally gives in to defeat, standing and trailing after her to the door.

She turns back to him on this side of the threshold with a final question she can't let go. She's intrigued though, because the craftsman in him is both his mask and soul and sometimes it's hard to tell, even now, which she's getting. "What does she sound like?"

His body slumps against the frame, anchored by his shoulder as he considers her with dazed eyes.

"Nikki," she clarifies, "You said it's easier to hear her… what does she sound like?"

"Oh," his body rocks toward her and straightens up as he lifts his hand and scratches nervously at the back of his head, ruffling his hair into awkward peaks, "I… haven't heard her in a while, to be honest," he admits. "I've just been… going around in circles," he says, finally raising his eyes to meet hers.

His spine curves further into itself with the weight of it then and she want to apologise, for whatever it is, she wants to apologise. "Yeah," she whispers instead, "I know the feeling."

She sees the question bubbling up in his chest, the unquenchable thirst to _know_ building him up almost instantly but she can't, she shakes her head and drops her eyes away.

"You're not going to give up on Nikki though, right?" she worries suddenly, reaching out to grab hold of his thumb.

"No," he whispers, "No. Never."


	11. Chapter 11

The nights are beginning to stretch themselves out, darkness creeping in a little earlier each evening, but the humidity still lingers, viscous and stifling no matter what time she gets to him. It's not the first time she's dragged him into the city, walked him around and around and then home again, but something always feel new to him.

The jagged edges of daylight are awash in the soft haze of near 1am, side-walks littered only by the petering out trickle of night workers, drunks and lovers. The traffic's eased to a low hum, cabs all lit up with expectancy and hovering against gutters to catch a wayward stumbler.

He revels in the rhythm of this worn path, drowns himself in the flow of their movements until there is barely anything of him left in it. Until the momentum of them feels like ocean tides and his body turns loose.

Each night his focus gets narrower, less and less of his surroundings, of him and his breathing and his aching body, and more and more of her. She's so open and breathtaking on nights like this, calling him from the other side of his door, the other side of midnight, and tugging him out into the night with her like he's not some fragile thing.

She's effervescent tonight, slipping in and out of puddled streetlight with a bounce in her step. Fearless and… content.

Castle discreetly swipes at the sweat on his neck.

"I told you, you wouldn't need that jacket," Kate huffs despite her eyes being trained on a couple of uniforms shuffling sleepily back to their cruiser with steaming mugs in hand.

He squints down at her, steps falling out of sync for a disorientated moment before he drops back into their rhythm with a sigh. He's always wondered how she does that.

The street's shrouded in the dirty orange-grey of late night watering holes, neon signs and murky streetlight, but it's enough for her to catch his petulant scowl from the corner of her eye.

He'd said _it's late, Beckett, it'll get cold_ but she's becoming concerned about it; his need to wrap himself up each night despite the warmth of the insistent summer air and the burn of his still healing body.

"I couldn't just listen, Beckett, that could set a dangerous precedent," he finally grumbles as they round the corner, following the path he knows she must have calculated for more light and less noise.

She rounds on him, spinning hard and fast into his path and he skids to an abrupt halt, staring wide-eyed at her fiery glare.

"Really? A dangerous precedent of what, Castle, you doing what you're told?" She angles for threatening, but there's a little tremor in the usually taught snap of her voice, some rattling thing that sounds like the ache of a smile.

He shudders with the heat of her tone and blinks hard. He stumbles back a step and then he catches the way her lips quiver on a victorious grin. It lights him up, how effortlessly she plays him and how stupidly beautiful it is to be her chump.

He clears his throat, pressing his body forward to tip her back. "Well, Beckett, imagine what could happen if you asked me to stay…" he trails off and her mouth drops open, her eyes go wide and he's tempted to leave it at that but he slowly dips down to whisper the rest of his words as close to her ear as he dares, "in the car."

He steps around her then, casually leaving her stunned body outside a long since darkened boutique.

He manages three full strides before her heart kicks back to life and her bottom lip gets trapped in a beaming smile. She rolls her eyes at her steady foolishness, four years on and still tripping over the same old tricks. The smell of him, the lean of his body, the way his words take her hand, lead her gently along and drop her off a cliff.

She growls behind him and he shudders, steps faltering for a split second before he shakes the shiver from his spine and propels himself on.

"Firstly, Mr Castle, I don't _ask_ you anything. I _tell_ you," she's throwing the words at his back as her long legs carry her to him in quick strides and he's smiling at the crisp snap in her voice.

She passes him in a flash, beautiful curls turning golden in the city light and lifting up in long streams behind her. She twists over her shoulder and picks up her pace, pointedly leaving him behind. Her mouth twists and then she's turning back around, no longer concerned with him. "And secondly, well jeez, Castle, I don't know… you might actual _stay in the damn car_ ," she drawls and he laughs, watching the confident bounce of her lithe body.

She's all snarky tonight, coiled up energy spitting out of her and hooking into his cheeks. She's sharp and infuriating and incredible.

He reaches out and hooks a finger into the hood of her soft vest, hears her self-pleased chuckle and tugs hard.

It jerks her back in line with him and he presses a fast, smacking kiss to her temple.

Her mouth snaps shut on a gasp and her lips lift in a soft, shy smile, colour crawling over the sharp angle of her cheekbones as she drops her head behind that curtain of golden hair and scuffs a foot along the footpath to kick at a trampled bottled cap as they shuffle along.

It swells up in him again this time, the sweetness of her smile and the way a pretty blush rushes up to the point of his lips on her skin, the way she ducks away from him and goes so quiet and small.

It had been an accident the first time – 3 nights ago, the second time she walked him? - A fierce impulse and a restraint that became too slow the moment he thought he'd lost her, lost himself. Everything compounded in a single moment that landed his lips on her skin and left them both a little pink.

[x]

" _Oh, when did I ever say that?" He'd asked, high pitched and disbelieving as they strolled home._

 _She paused a moment under a cascading streetlight to stare at him incredulously before launching into a dramatic re-enactment of the precise moment he_ had _in fact said, and she'd quoted, "Lanie could definitely kick Kate's ass."_

 _Her impression of Esposito was chillingly real. He'd never seen her like that, completely invested in the performance, clomping down the side-walk at 2am with her shoulders set wide and her brow furrowed, Javi's unique accent rolling off her tongue._

 _She'd twisted toward him, travelling backward without missing a step and launching into an eerie picture of Ryan with all his stuttering and shifting eyes, his nervous debate over backing his boss or Lanie, because they're all a little afraid of Lanie._

 _He'd remembered the night, finally. A long case that left them all sleep deprived and too many drinks in at the old haunt. He remembered Lanie, tugging Kate by the arm and a harshly whispered conversation that left the boys starting a bet over whose ass would be kicked first._

 _Kate stepped into his path then and threw herself completely into some ridiculous impression of_ him _. She made him all dumb tongue and flailing limbs, her head rattling from side to side in an entirely stupid performance_.

 _She looked so magical, dancing in the hazy glow of a dozing city, uninhibited and teasing him mercilessly. His body ached with the desire to kiss the silly grin from her face and then she'd laughed, tipped her head back and trembled with mirth over her own dopey version of him and he'd lost it, reached out._

 _He wrapped an arm around her waist and reeled her into the wall of his chest, smacked a chuckling kiss to her cheek and growled in her ear, "I don't sound like that, Kate."_

[x]

"You can't just keep doing that every time you want to shut me up." Her voice, soft and unravelled now pulls him from the memory of her.

He smirks, toeing the tinkling bottle cap along. "I beg to differ, Detective."

Her head snaps up then and he knows, a moment too late, that he's been trapped. Her eyes are bright, eating up all the light and throwing it back at him. "So you _were_ trying to shut me up?" She questions, left eyebrow raised.

He stops, jaw slack and mind stumbling. She stalks back to him and he inches away, back pressing against a sudden brick wall when she steps into him. She's got him cornered and there's no light here and her feet settle between his, so he presses his palms flat against the rough bricks, crawling up the wall.

"I, uh…" he shakes his head emphatically, "no, I, that's not… I didn't say that."

She laughs. A deep chuckling rising up over his bumbling. She pinches the zipper of the thin jacket that started all of this and tears it down in one swift pull. Her hands slide down his chest, curling around his waist as an anchor to pull her onto her toes, body surging up, up, into his.

"It seems that I'm the one that's set a dangerous precedent," she whispers over his cheekbone and then her body is sliding back down his and she's gone.

He can't breathe.

He's still plastered to the wall when Kate reaches the traffic light they usually follow across the street. "You comin', Castle?" She throws over her shoulder with a winning grin.

[x]

"… and there they were, my mother and my principal, making out in the copy room. Do you know how much money I've spent on therapy just to be able to say that sentence?"

His smile splits open when she opens her mouth to the sky and laughs at him, at his childhood traumas and the inherited dramatics of it all.

They step off the side-walk to cross the street and she worries about it, about going this far and further. His steps fall a little heavier, knees locking on this side of the road and she considers hooking her fingers through his and turning them around but a slash a neon blue from a shady looking bar falls over him, lighting up the furrow in his brow and the way his jaw is set at an angle – determined. She runs her fingers along his forearm, elbow to wrist and back again before she lets him go and his shoulders loosen a little, body scuffling along beside hers in concentrated silence.

He notices her deliberate breathing and the subtly lengthening silence between each footfall long before he notices his own laboured chest. He slows, instinctively, feet growing heavy to fall back with her and the intimacy in her slackened pace almost undoes him.

"I'm okay," he says.

She lifts her face to him, leaking apartment lights filtering down through scattered leaves and catching in her eyelashes as her lips curl into a pleased smile.

"I know," she agrees, head bobbing gently up and down before her attention wanders off into the street.

It's further than she'd planned, past the lines she's calculated. Three more blocks and all the way to the edge of the park and she's worried, about the openness, the inability to hug the walls and scan ahead through the light or duck quickly into the nearest quiet space.

He's a little tense, his body held tight and away from hers but he's here and he's _okay_ and she's… proud. She's so indescribably proud of him.

They skirt the edge of the dimly lit park and she's cataloguing her surroundings, searching the open shop fronts on the other side of the road and remembering how many paces they place between them when a piercing shot rings out and he ceases to exist.

His fingers curl tight around her wrist, his body goes stiff and she loses him.

For some distended moments, he escapes; god knows how he loves to escape the weight of this body. But then there's her or the memory of her and his flesh is growing frighteningly real, anchoring him to the universe. Every crafted detail of her brings him back, the softness of her wrist, her jutted ankle, the gold freckles in her eyes, collar bones, blue: veins, her neck, the curve of her ear, the urgency of her fingers, her razor tongue.

"Take it easy, Rick. It was a car door. Place the sound. You've got this," she whispers and the words softly filter through to him.

The gentle sound of her pulls him back into his aching skin and reminds him he's real, he's here and it's _so_ hard to breathe.

She watches him. Waits. "You've got this," she repeats, insistent this time, and his eyes open, falling down to hers like he'll find it there, whatever it is he needs.

She catches his fingers, wriggles hers between his and presses their palms together in something that feels to him like prayer. Her thumb swirls across his knuckles and they seal themselves in that moment, four counted beats and a single steady breath from him before she tugs him off the side-walk and into the momentarily empty street.

"Come on," she says, as is routine now, "I saw a diner back there."


	12. Chapter 12

Kate pushes through the door with the weight of him in tow, tumbling into the soft hum of a dimly lit all-night all-rounder. The Oxford Tavern, as its sign reads, arches around the street corner, heavy set red-wood bar and opposing booths all sweeping around the arc on deep-green carpet.

The air is musky, dense with alcohol, the lingering smell of cheap cigars and day old oil. It rushes out over them as the door opens and Kate sucks in a harsh breath, the taste of this place settling on her tongue like stale memories.

The whole space is set in a soft glow from the low hanging tube lights with their green glass shades and feels like the inside of a heartbroken hangover, soft music flowing from an old-fashion juke-box in the corner housing the bar.

The door squeals with their arrival and several heads turn in their direction. Kate stills as the sprinkling of patrons, all drowning in alcohol or mowed down by exhaustion run glazed eyes over the intrusion of them and Castle careens into her at the abrupt snag in their momentum. His fingers clench around hers, his other hand curling tight around her waist and she feels the gasping stutter of his chest against her shoulder blades, wincing as his body goes taut against hers.

She covers the hand he has curled around her, fingers slipping between his in gentle apology. "Sorry," she whispers to him, though she's already learnt that he won't yet hear.

A knot of stumbling dart players turn then, dragging glassy eyes down her body. They mumble unintelligible pick-up lines, bumping clumsily into each other and Kate considered pressing Castle back out onto the street, but their attention slowly comes to focus on the tangle of their fingers knotted high on her waist and the roundest chuckles, nudging his buddies away.

They go back to their game, entirely uninterested.

Kate sighs, keeping Castle's body curled around hers as she steps further into the space. She tugs him down the longest leg of the high-topped bar, the curve of the building that serves as more diner than drowning place.

She unravels their fingers and presses him down into a tiny booth buried in the back corner, soft light spilling from the kitchen in broken lines there.

She remembers that he'd whispered to her - a few nights ago when she'd moved to tug him into a café and he'd reeled her body hard and fast back to him – that the pressure helps, so she scoots further into his side, pressing him tightly between the warmth of her body and the cold sting of the full length window, settling into the achingly familiar silence of him.

Finally she feels the warmth flooding back into his thigh where it's pressed against hers and Kate waves the waitress over, orders something for him to drink when he finally comes back to her.

[x]

It's quieter in this curl of the tavern, garbled sound barely filtering around the bend and Kate's mind drifts off, tearing through the details. The open spaces, the cracked light, the trigger and distance and the way he reached for her, the chill of his fingers. She's replaying the sound, piecing together the importance of their surroundings and building the patterns to know him, to see it coming next time, get him out sooner.

She startles at the feathering of warm fingertips over her forearm and looks up to find their waitress - a soft older woman with kind eyes, freckles splattered over her drawn cheeks and a concerned smile looking down at her. "You two okay here, Sweetheart?" She asks, eyes flicking pointedly to Castle and back like the offering of a lifeline.

Kate rakes her eyes back over him then, half buried in shadow. His broad frame, blurred in the dimly lit space, looms over her. Every angle of him tense, his body stiff and trembling beside hers, and his gaze empty.

"Fine," Kate smiles warmly, "He's just… we're... I'm a cop. Detective," she finally settles on with a sigh, "He's my partner."

The waitress' body slumps a little in relief as she unloads the strawberry milkshake and herbal tea from her tray and Kate fills with warmth for this woman, reaching out to a random customer in the middle of the night despite what it could cost her. Her dark brown eyes soften as she skims back over their bodies, pressed tightly together with Kate's small frame attempting miserably to shelter him. Her lips curl into a sympathetic smile. "Tough night out there?" She asks, eyes drifting out to the darkened street and coming back to Kate.

Beckett releases a slow breath. "Yeah," she nods, reluctantly agreeing. "Tough night. But, we'll be fine, thanks."

"Okay, Honey, well you just look after your… partner," the astute waitress says with a cheeky wink as she turns on her heel. "And it's on the house tonight, Detective, we appreciate the finest around here," she throws over her shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen.

The corners of Kate's mouth twitch as she shakes her head and turns back to Castle, his silence suddenly unsettling. It's the irritation she misses, the sly comment about his drinks being on her tonight or a wink of his own that would look simply filthy.

Nothing.

Her body deflates and she twists into him, reaching over his shoulder with rattling fingers to slowly re-zip his jacket and wrap him back up. Her fingers slip off the metal loop when it reaches his chest and she presses gentle fingertips there, her stomach turning to stone and sinking down, down, with the weight of missing him so wholly in each of these moments that he needs to be gone. It's different each time she loses him, yet unequivocally shattering, and she's exhausted with the efforts of rebuilding.

She takes a slow sip of her tea, steam billowing out over the rim and warming her closed eyelids. It smells heavenly, a specific mix that Lanie forcefully insisted her body needs, but it's an acquired taste she's still studiously attempting to acquire. Her face scrunches as the bitterness coats her tongue.

Finally, she feels the first rustlings of Castle at her side and turns to him. His face is suddenly close to hers, brow furrowed as the focus in his eyes clears and a question she doesn't understand appears.

He studies her for a moment before reaching across her body to lift her mug to his lips.

His face screws up in disgust as he spits the offending liquid back into the mug, choking and glaring at her. "Kate, don't drink that. That's definitely rat poison," he scolds.

She chuckles, thick hiccupping waves of relief rushing out of her as her head lolls against his shoulder because _of course_ that's the way he comes back to her; silly and dramatic and outraged.

"Firstly, Lanie says I have to and secondly, well I wouldn't drink it now." She scowls as he pushes the mug out of her reach as though she might still be tempted.

He shrugs unapologetically, plucks another straw from the dispenser at the edge of the table and drops it into his milkshake, pushing the drink between them. "Well, I hate to break it to you, Beckett, but I'm fairly certain that Lanie's trying to kill you," he says matter-of-factly.

Kate shakes her head at his antics but pulls a long sip through the straw and settles back into the booth nonetheless.

His body follows, always follows, but it's heavy and clumsy, falling hard against the cushion and bouncing her up on a puff of air. He reaches out for her quickly, warm palm landing on her knee and pressing her down. "Whoops, sorry," he chuckles and she smiles despite herself.

"Goof," she mutters as her head tips back onto his shoulder and her eyes slip closed, the relief of his voice, the warmth of his palm and the simple presence of him all undoing her swiftly and without remorse.

Her fingers slip down, tangling up with his and he drags their joined hands into his lap, cheek falling gently to the crown of her hair. He breathes in the scent of her, sweet cherry wine intoxicatingly flooding his senses and he sighs, body slowly dissolving in the tide of her breathing.

"How long was I gone?" he finally whispers, grimacing as she jerks away.

Her fingers slip away and the relieved tilt of her lips falls. "Does it really matter, Castle?" She counters, the shame in his eyes tearing savagely at her heart every time.

"No," he sighs, throat burning. "No, I suppose not, but… thanks. For having my back," He finally manages and she lifts her eyes back to his.

She holds his gaze and nods. "Partners," she says like an ending, even though the single word tastes like a cowardly little lie scrambling out over the choking truth of it all.

He stares for a long moment before clearing his throat and busying himself with their milkshake.

[x]

"Have you heard from Nikki lately?" Kate finally asks.

"Yeah!" he blurts, loud and excited and startling himself. He blushes for a second and then barrels on, launching into a jumbled mix of stories, snippets of days here and there that brought him to the perfect scene and she's tripping along with him.

He twists his shoulders to face her and brings his hands into the story; wide, flailing actions that draw the attention of the man in the next booth and make Kate blush.

His eyes widen in genuine horror and she laughs. "Don't laugh, Kate," he glares as she presses her lips together. "I actually scared myself, that's how _good_ this scene is," he presses and she rolls her eyes.

He tugs her hands into the story too then, lines them up on the table like bookends and dances his fingers around between them, setting the scene with splendour.

Kate falls involuntarily into the action, caught in the silky weave of details as he ties everything together and explains the way his unconventional attempts at research flip over into a tormenting escape for Nikki.

She loves the brightness of him in these moments. Bursting into the story and fizzing over every detail. She loves that he takes her along with him, that he grabs at her fingers, twists and turns them around and makes her Nikki all over again.

She gasps suddenly and he falls back into the window laughing loud and long as she presses her palms to her ears with a glare, singing, "La la la la la, I did not just hear those spoilers."

God, she's completely childish about it. Petulant and silly and so so beautiful.

He's winded by the way she pouts and he reaches for her on instinct, fingers curling around her wrists to pull her hands away.

"Kate." Her name falls out of him. Just her name spilling from somewhere deep in his lungs and they're drowning.

Her focus tunnels down to him. To the way his blink falls heavy and slow, the way his eyes flick over her lips and his body angles closer.

He tugs on her wrists.

She tips into him and then he's kissing her. Hard and breathless. It's barely an instant. A quick brush of his lips over hers.

"Don't," he whispers, the sound barely carrying between them. He kisses her again, tipping down until his lips catch hers and lift away on a chuckle, "Don't pout, Kate."

He pulls away, warring desires stretching him thin. He needs to see her, needs to kiss her again.

Her wrists are still trapped in the burning circle of his fingers, held out on either side of his head and her arms snap taut as her body falls back in surprise. Her eyes go wide and she blinks up at him.

Her face lights up as her lips stretch slowly into a smile. "I wasn't pouting," she whines through a lopsided grin and he laughs, deep and honest like he hasn't in so long. She's ridiculous. Adorable. He almost says that.

He tugs her in again and she's there to meet him, wrists slipping from his grip and arms circling his shoulders. She sighs into the kiss. Her body crowds against his, pressing him into the corner and he reaches for her, one hand wrapping around her hip, tugging her into him and the other burying in her curling hair.

Her mouth opens and something shatters. Some hesitant thing cracks between them and he almost collapses with the relief of it. She feels it in his shoulders, the slant of his lips, and her hand smooths out gently over his chest. She kisses him slowly, carefully, and pulls away, resting her forehead against his.

"You were pouting, Kate," he whispers over her skin and she laughs.

She shoves at his shoulder and scoots out of his grasp. "Shut up, Castle."

He's completely demolished by the sight of her, all flushed skin and glistening eyes when she reaches out for their milkshake and wraps her fingers around the glass. His hand falls down to her thigh, warm palm wrapping around her and tugging her closer. Her body jerks against the seat and she gasps, sucking in a harsh breath as her eyes slam closed.

He grins at the wreck of her, presses his nose to her hair and whispers over the shell of her ear, thready and raw, "I'll change the book, Kate. If you're gonna be all pouty about it."

He pulls back, presses a smacking kiss to the rising colour in her cheeks and she ducks away.

"Good," she nods, biting her smile around her straw. "Good."


	13. Chapter 13

"I wonder what she knows," He murmurs to her after a long moment of centring his body, finally absorbing his surroundings and taking in the elements of the hazy tavern. Concreting every detail of this tiny booth where she kissed him.

The sounds barely register, disjointed and disordered as Kate scrambles to find meaning. "Hmm?" she hums stupidly, twisting over her shoulder to follow his gaze.

There's a young waitress with bright eyes and smooth dark skin, perched on a bar stool, staring at them like they're something interesting.

"She looks like she knows something. Don't you think?"

Kate's eyes flick to his and she smiles, chuckling lightly. "Yeah. Yeah, she does."

"Alexis had the same look when she was… three. Four? She was so tiny but I could just see it in her, I was totally convinced she knew something important," he begins and the entirety of her focus comes back to him as she watches his face go soft with nostalgia.

Kate reaches out, squeezes his hand, urging him on. He smiles. "She was so wise or… perceptive, maybe. She was sitting on her favourite blanket in the middle of my office floor and I remember sitting down next to her, wondering what it was that she was thinking about so deeply whilst knotting up her doll's hair." He chuckles, shaking himself out of the memory long enough to bring Kate into it. "And so I asked her, 'Who are you, really?' and you know what she said?" He asks Kate, eyes shining with an ending she knows he's proud of.

She smiles, more free than he's ever been allowed to see her. She shakes her head and squeezes his fingers again.

"She whispered to me, like it was a secret," he continues, leaning in to murmur in her ear, "I'm not sure yet."

A breathy little laugh slips past Kate's lips and it's such a beautiful, awed sound, that Castle pulls back to see her face.

She looks so soft, as taken by his daughter's answer as he was more than a decade ago. "That's… enlightened," she says, holding his intense gaze for half a second before looking away. "Do you think she's sure now?"

"No," Castle shakes his head, "Not yet, but she's learning. I see her learning."

He twists, plants an elbow on the scarred table and rests his chin in his palm, taking her in.

Kate nods. "I don't think any of us are sure," she sighs.

"You are!" The words fall out of him loud and clumsy and stupid. He grimaces as she turns her head toward him and he wraps their fingers up more tightly together, holding onto her in apology and desperation. "Or at least, I am. I mean, you, you're… I'm," he stumbles, closing his eyes and drawing in a slow breath before opening them to her again.

"I'm sure of you, Kate, I'm sure of who you are," he says. His eyes are filled with honesty, his voice strong, sharpened by clarity, and she's the one left holding on.

"How do you know you're not still learning?" Kate chokes out, completely strangled.

"I am," he admits, searching her face as his chin nods against the curve of his palm, "But that doesn't mean I'm any less sure."

He sees the weight of it slam against her chest. It knocks her back, leaves her wide-eyed, and the truth of it stabs into him in the same instant. Guilt settles in his bones because that _is_ the truth of it. It's a part of the truth of it. Every fibre of the sound tugged through him and it's real. He's sure of her and yet it's all a lie. He _knows_ her and she's not… anything that lie made her out to be. Lies, if he's honest, because it feels like a new lie in every second that he isn't saying _I love you, I'm in love with you, I'm sorry_.

Her mouth goes dry. She wants to reach out to him but the words are scraping over her tongue, falling flat and hollow between them faster than she can swallow them the way she has every night before.

"I'm not Nikki."

It startles him. He jerks away and he's… mad. He's angry about it, she sees it the moment the words reach him and she wants to be sorry but it's too important to take back. It's one of the things she worries over. The fact that he thinks he knows. That his _Kate, I love you_ is all she hears and she knows, whether he remembers or not, that he _believes_ it and it's not fair. It's not fair for him to go on thinking he knows her when she's not the Nikki he's written himself in love with.

"I know that, Kate!" He snaps.

His spine goes straight along the window and she aches with how hard the move tries for distance.

She reaches for him but he shakes his head. "Jesus, Kate," he hisses, "It's not that you're not Nikki, it's that Nikki's not you. It wouldn't be fair. She doesn't deserve it!"

He collapses into himself, the fight rushes out of him just like that. Like it's all he has to say but it doesn't _mean_ anything and she's annoyed.

He sees the confusion, the curiosity, twisting into annoyance on her mouth before it even opens. "What?" It's dumb. Inelegant and unintentional and he'd laugh if he had it in him.

He scratches at his head, huffs and drops his arm, grimacing as his knuckles catch the edge of the table. "She's less…" he scrambles about, searches for the right word, "flawed."

Kate snorts, her lips purse and she swallows hard as her head bows and he's left to the watch the bounce of her curls as she nods. "Right," she mutters under her breath.

"No!" He growls, pressing his temple to the cold glass, "That's not what I meant. Well it is. It's just… not what you think."

His fists clench. "Kate," He pleads, surprised when her eyes come straight back to his.

There's no pain there, no anger. There's nothing of what he expected to see, only silent resignation and that hurts. It all hurts. It splits his chest in two and he looks away.

"She's less scarred. Less…" he murmurs, the words puffing out against the window, "human."

"I do love her, Kate," he says, twisting and grabbing frantically at her fingers as she flinches away. He squeezes hard to pull her attention and waits patiently until she looks at him. His voice is calm when he continues, raw like they are the first real words he's ever known, "But she's not you."

Her throat constricts and the sound barely escapes, "Castle." He's there. He kisses her again. Steals his name from her lips and leaves with a sigh.

"I've never known how to write her right," he picks up the lost threads of the conversation, voice soft and even, certain now. "She's a heroine that I'm not so sure I was ready for," he sighs, "and she borrows things from you, I suppose. She needs them, I've told you that. But… I've never written her in details that she hasn't earned." He shakes his head.

He wipes his palm against his thigh and licks his lips like the words are drying up and all she can do is stare. "Your scars, all the things that make you, you've battled for those, and the depths of you… Nikki doesn't deserve them. Not yet. Probably not ever."

He looks down to her shining eyes and tears himself away again. He needs her to understand. "I'll never know how to write her like that, Kate. So tragically human. So extraordinary."

It's the first time she's seen him, the storyteller, so clearly. He's deeply intense and vulnerable beneath the cloak of his ego and she burns bright with how mercilessly he makes art, how brutally honest every crafted detail needs to be for him to pen it in ink; for him to allow it to go to his readers.

 _I'm sure of you, Kate_.

It's a bigger truth than she's prepared for and she's heavy with it. Sinking down through the seat and clinging to him but it's entirely hopeless. She's in ruins.

She wants brush the lines away from his eyes. She wants to tell him she knows, she _does_ know that and that she's sure of him too. She wants to say that she's sure of _them_ in almost every moment but the words that spill out of her splatter over him, thick and bloodied.

"Why didn't you call?"

The colour drains from his face. "I - " he starts and she moves to apologise. She lifts up to tell him it doesn't matter, it doesn't even _matter_ anymore but a glass shatters, a man stumbles by her and tips over. He knocks into a chair and tumbles down with it and Castle's gone.

[x]

She's hollow without him in the cab, realising desolately that she stumbled in and out of some stuffy tavern in the middle of the night alone, despite being wrapped in his body.

The almost stagnant streets rush by them in a stream of crackling colour but the details are lost on her. It's like he's only half here. Like someone left a shell of his body and stole the rest.

She circles her thumb over his knuckles, sat on the awkward middle bump in the back seat and pressed against him in useless effort.

She's chewing over the details of leaving, of getting him home and letting go, but when the cab pulls to the curb his fingers curl around hers and he looks down. His eyes trace over her face, over her jaw and cheekbones and eyes.

He opens the door and she's worried that it'll be him letting go. He shakes away her hand and his face drops into a solemn frown. He hangs his head gravely. "I'm sorry for it every single day," he says and turns to go.

She catches him, hands curling into his collar and pulling him back. She presses a sweet, lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth and breathes with him for half a second. "Me too," she says, lips almost brushing his skin and then she nudges him out the door.


	14. Chapter 14

It's nearing 9pm, night sky burning into a sooty indigo, less than 24 hours beyond the balm of half-healing and the press of his lips, when everything falls apart.

Kate presses cold fingertips to her swollen eyelids, vision burnt by hours of rolling surveillance. She's got her screen split into six paused partitions. Six camera angles and a single captured second. She's wrestling with memory, piecing together the geography of the street corner and calculating the blind spot, the sliver of space that went uncovered and carried him out of sight. His almost killer, hers too.

Her head's tipped back, desperately working on the details of blindness when the thump of two re-combed files land on her desk and she jerks back, finds Ryan and Esposito hovering beside her.

The hope in her bloodshot eyes makes Ryan sick, his quivering stomach raw with failure, and he turns away.

Disillusionment stamps out the flicker of light in her again and Esposito grits his teeth against the useless apology he's tired of handing her. "We're sorry, Beckett," He finally grinds.

Kate flicks her gaze back to Ryan and her bones ache, threatening to shatter at the uneasy reality of him. His too big clothes draped carelessly over sharp shoulders, skin paled, bruised in tired places, his fingers curled tight inside his trouser pockets and eyes cast down – eyes that meet hers less and less each day, now that she considers it.

His body is trembling with the weight of nothing, _still nothing_ , with the exhaustion of sifting through the same files, searching for something new, something missed, _something._

Kate raises an eyebrow to Esposito, tips her head toward his partner but Esposito only blinks, his mouth twists and then he shakes his head, something angry in his eyes.

She blinks back, swallows thickly and steps into Ryan, waiting patiently for him. "Ryan," she tries, after a long moment of quiet trembling, his and hers both.

He straightens his body, lifts his chin, and sets his gaze high over her head. It's hollow and disconnected, falling in line, waiting for orders. She chokes on it.

She reaches out for him and tugs on his wrinkled cuff. "Kev," she whispers.

All the air rushes out of him and she finally catches his eyes, violent blue and devastated. "It's okay," she says, dipping down to him and trying on a smile. It's pitiful; she senses it and lets it go. She smooths her palm out over his shoulder.

"It's not okay!" The sound bellows out, rough and deep and damaged.

They both jolt, her fingers dig hard into Ryan's flesh and she turns, following his wide eyes over her shoulder and catching the moment in slow motion.

Esposito's fingers ball up into veined fists, his nostrils flare, jaw clenches and before she can reach him his fist smashes into the white board, the harsh sound echoing through the bullpen and setting the sweeping space into dumbstruck silence.

The board tips back and it propels her forward, into him, she slams her heel down onto the wheeled stand and it slips back to the ground, rattling unsteadily.

"Jesus," she hisses, dazed. She's left disorientated by the outburst, though maybe she shouldn't be and that alone is enough to crumple her now - she shouldn't be.

She sees his knuckles protesting, insistently swelling up in a deep red, but his body moves completely unaware. He angrily paces the length of her desk, breathing heavily and then he turns to her. "It's not okay," he repeats, growling and feral and she's sorry. She wants to say she's sorry.

Her eyes goes soft and he flinches, turns back to the dented white board, taunting in its emptiness, in the dried out leads and unanswered questions circling his name. "We don't have anything," he snarls into Castle's crisp book-jacket photo, "not a fucking thing."

"Bro," Ryan tries, stepping around Kate to clasp his hand over Esposito's shoulder.

He jerks, roughly shrugging away from Ryan's touch and spinning furiously into his space. His palms land hard against Ryan's ribs and he shoves forcefully. The sound of shoulder blades catching on the metal frame and teeth catching teeth through lip zings up her spine and Kate goes stiff, dumbfounded as she watches Ryan's body rebound off the board and burst forward, wild and irate, blood trickling from his ruptured lip.

The two of them go nose to nose, broken, untamed, and Kate's frozen. It's all been drenched in hell in an instant. In the moment between _it's okay_ and _it's not_ and she's motionless. Esposito's chest lifts, his shoulders square off and it knocks her onward, body jolting forward on instinct.

She slips into the slice of space between her boys, feels the rigidity of them on either side of her body. The three of them, chests heaving in rapid succession. She straightens her spine, pushing Ryan back and lifting up, enforcing her height over Esposito, but she's small in the space of them, weak by circumstance if nothing else.

"Stand down, Detective." Her voice is calm, deliberate, coloured entirely by a solidity she no longer possesses.

Recognition crashes over Esposito then. His eyes meet hers and his face loosens. His skin pales and he takes a single step back, silent and unreadable. Something angry pours from his lips in rushing Spanish and he spins away. He turns back, opens his mouth, closes it, and turns again, going.

Kate reaches for him, snags that back of his shirt for half a moment before he shakes her off, body rippling with tension and propelling him out beyond her desk. "Espo," she calls but he's moving fast

"Javi," she tries, louder, pleading this time. She moves to go after him but Ryan's arm comes out in-front of her. She slams hard against it, winded and stunned by the way they've fallen.

"No," Ryan says, voice calm in the wake of his partner. "No. Let him go."

Ryan's spine uncoils as the fire-escape door clicks with heavy finality behind Esposito, and he feels Beckett shaking against his arm. He curls in, tugs her stunned body along and drops her back in her chair. "Just let him go," he repeats before moving to pull his chair up beside her desk.

"What?" He snaps at the Meerkat gallery, teeth grinding down hard against each other as the scattering of other officers drop their heads back to their desks. He plops down next to Kate and the two of them settle there. Walled in and quietly shaken. All the colour has drained from her fingers, her lips, around her eyes and Ryan goes weak with it.

"Go, Kevin. You should go get him," she finally says, voice soft with collapse.

She looks up at his silence to find him shaking his head. She raises an eyebrow and he sighs. "They'll be fine," he mutters.

Kate's face scrunches. She tugs a tissue from her drawer and curls her finger in the air.

He leans in, plants an elbow of her desk, rests his chin in his palm. Kate sighs as she takes in the damage to his rapidly swelling lip, teeth tearing almost clean through. She curls a hand around his neck and presses the tissue firmly against the gash. Ryan winces and she tightens her hold on his neck to steady him. "Sorry," she whispers, "need to stop the bleeding, you know the drill."

His eyes open and he tries to smile, regrets it immediately but sits still as she prods at the damage and reaches for a new tissue. Always a good patient, her youngest.

"They?" She asks as the bleeding slows, voice lilting with confusion.

"Lanie," Ryan mumbles against her wrapped fingers. "He'll go to Lanie, they'll be fine."

"Oh," Kate stammers as she tosses the last tissue and sits back, at a loss because she didn't know that either, at least not in the way Ryan does.

She studies him them, chin still resting in his palm and his body going lose with resignation. All of it catches in her throat. "But he hasn't done this before has he?" She asks. It's a sudden and demanding thing, she knows, she can hear the worry rushing out of her.

He doesn't speak, his eyes come to hers and drag away, but she sees the loyalty there, to him and to her and the painful way the two no longer coincide. "Ryan!" she snaps and it's an order now. "He's okay, right?"

His eyes come back to hers, catch and hold and there's something angry there too, something that wants to feel personal. His wiry shoulders lift into a stiff shrug that sticks.

She moves to open her mouth, demand an actual response but he gets there first. Severe despite his even tone, "Are you?"

The challenge in his voice lifts her out of her seat. She stands, towers over him in his eerie calm. She slaps her palms down on her desk and presses into his space, grinding her teeth against his total unflinching detachment. "And what about you?" She snaps.

He flinches. Life floods through him and she moves to press at it but it leeches away so fast. He turns away from her, stubborn and defiant. "I'm fine," he grits and he looks… so terrifyingly like her.

Kate falls back into the seat and reaches for him. "Ryan," she says, fingers curling over his wrist. She's desperate now, ready to take to her knees, petrified of losing him in all the same black spaces she lost herself.

He pulls away from her and paces between the murder boards. Her mother's, their fallen Captain's, Castle's. He turns back to her, solid and composed, unaffected. "What's next, boss?" He questions, body tall and straight.

Terror rises hot and fast behind her lungs at how empty he is, how effortlessly detached. How much of his body is here alone. "Ryan, look, I think you should -" she starts to say but he cuts her off.

His eyes go soft and he steps closer to her. "Beckett, please, I need this," he whispers.

"Kev - " she says, shaking her head.

Ryan clears his throat. He squares his shoulders and links his fingers behind his back in a refrained salute. "What's next, boss?" He repeats, demanding now and Kate sees it more than she hears it – the thing that felt personal in his eyes - _I need you_.

Kate's hand curls tight around her armrest, knuckles turning white as the cruel truth settles heavily on her shoulders. _We need you too._ God, she's been watching them drown as she clings to Castle like dry ground without them.

She rises, body hard with renewed fight, with something more at stake. She stands shoulder to shoulder with Ryan and they stare at the boards. Her gaze settles on Castle's photo, on his blue eyes and beaming smile, his lips, hair, and the angle of his chin.

Ryan tips in and nudges her. "Answer's not there," he says, voice shaky like it's the wrong thing, "this wasn't about him."

"No," she says, shaking her head and reaching out to tug Rick's photo off the board, "No. This wasn't about him." She drops the photo into her drawer and comes back to Ryan.

"So…" he drawls and Kate smiles.

"So…" she drawls back at him before shoving the mostly empty whiteboard aside and drawing the other two closer. She taps her mother's photo and turns, throwing the whiteboard marker to him. "We start again. At the beginning."

She steps back in line with him and tells him quietly, "Together, this time."

His eyes go bright as he turns to her. "Yeah?" he wonders and she's torn between laughing and crying over his eagerness.

"Yeah," she says, nudging him forward and smiling softly as he uncaps the pen, drawing careful lines between the boards and taking in her mother's case like oxygen.

[x]

Sometime around midnight her phone skids across her desk and both she and Ryan startle out of her mother's case.

"Hey," she says, answering the phone and miming a coffee mug to Ryan as she moves toward the break room.

Ryan smiles and nods a please before dropping back to her cramped desk.

"Morning, Kate," Castle husks across the line and Kate pulls the phone away from her ear. After midnight, then.

"Morning," she sighs, "I didn't realise the time."

There's a beat of silence and then Ryan hears her apologising. "Oh, sorry, I can't, not tonight. I should have…sorry, I should have called."

Ryan bristles, he didn't even consider that she probably had somewhere to be tonight, with Josh, he supposes. There's another beat and then he hears, "No, I'm just with Ryan." He moves to go after her, apologies of his own pulling him up but just before she rounds the corner her voice carries out to him.

"No. I'm fine, I just… we both need this time to work together," she sighs and Ryan's body falls back, heavy and relieved as the break room door clicks behind her, throwing the bullpen back into stillness.

"Kate," Castle sighs, "You're not fine." There's no question to it and that's a deliberate thing, a practiced thing.

Her hands hover over the coffee machine and he waits, listens for the moment of surrender in her breathing and at the hitch he continues. "It's not me, is it?"

"No," she fires back a little too quickly, too adamantly and he sucks in a breath.

Irrationally, selfishly, she's angry, her collar bones ache with it, but what can she say? _Yes, damn it, Castle, it's you, you're not here and we're going to pieces without you._

Her body is so weak with exhaustion, with the burst of adrenaline and the quick descent that always leaves her breathless. She's still reeling from the collapse of them.

"Why would you think that?" She questions, swallowing down a tired sob.

"Well," Castle says and it sounds entirely smug, the single word has her body lifting up, face flushing, "Last night you kissed me and tonight you never showed."

It's meant to be a joke, a sly jab at her, but there's real hesitance beneath it all, something insecure that knots up in her stomach. "I kissed you?" she smirks, "Um… No," she drawls, incredulously, "that's not exactly how I recall the evening unfolding, Mr Castle."

She hears the soft rustle of his shirt, imagines him shrugging nonchalantly and pursing his lips. Ass. "Semantics, Detective. Point is…"

"Point is," Kate cuts him off, glancing around the empty break room " _you_ kissed _me_ ," she hisses as though someone might hear.

Castle chuckles, deep and rumbling, vibrating against her ear despite the distance. "Point is," he repeats, like he's scolding a child into silence. He hears her petulant huff on the other end and presses his lips together, eating up a laugh. "Actually, Detective, what I was going to say is, the point is…"

"Jesus, Castle," Beckett snaps, "what? What is the point?"

He laughs then, a sharp sound that lifts up over her frustration. She chuckles lightly and he presses on. "If you would just let me finish, Beckett," he scolds and she growls. "The point is, I was going to let you kiss me again tonight."

It is so smug, so filthily cocky and irritating and she can't help the laugh that squeaks out despite herself. "Wow, Castle," she breathes through her stunned laughter, "Firstly, there is no _again_ and secondly, I didn't realise I had to wear you down."

"Mmm," he hums, "what can I say, Detective, it takes a lot of work to hook The White Whale."

"You're an absolute Moby D-" Kate starts snarkily, cut off by his loud bark of laughter. She hears the squeak of his chair, can see him with his head tipped back and his eyes bright. She drops into the sound of his laughter and shakes her head, smiling gently.

He listens to the easy sounds of her making coffee and quietly glues together the pieces of her voice, her breath, her silence, contemplating the state of her before he knows she smiled. "The boys okay?" He questions as he ties up the threads of her.

"Yeah," she says.

He sighs, "What's wrong with them?"

"I," she starts, stops. He hears the clunk of ceramic on the bench and the soft puff of air as the couch takes the fall of her weight. "They're… I don't know."

She takes a deep breath and he waits her out. "I don't really know and that's the problem, I should have… I mean, I'm their… I should have seen it coming, you know? Worse, I think I did and I just didn't, or couldn't maybe, do anything."

His brow furrows and he tips forward, plants his elbow on his desk. "Should have seen what coming? What happened, Beckett?"

She's silent for a long while, debating over the fairness of this, of anything. "Nothing," she decides, "nothing really, it's fine. It's fine now but…"

"But what?" He digs when she falls silent and there's nothing in her breathing that he knows.

"I'm worried about Ryan," she finally spills.

"Okay," Castle gently nudges, "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know," Kate growls and Castle tips back in his chair, wants to reach out for her, "It's just… I told him to go home and he said no, that he _needs_ this and jeez, Castle, you should have seen his face, he looked just like…"

"Like what, Kate?" He prods, throat tightening with the struggle of hers.

She huffs, "Like me," and they both go silent.

Castle licks at his dry lips. _Say something reassuring_. "Well it's good that you're with him, Kate," he says, voice scratchy, "Maybe it's not… I mean, maybe he just needed some Beckett time. You know, he is a little bit of a Mama's boy."

Kate snorts. "Oh come on, Castle, Esposito is totally a Mama's boy, but Ryan? No. We all know he's a Daddy's boy. Always has been, the little traitor."

Castle laughs at that, at the silly jealously in her voice and his chest loosens when he hears her softly chuckling too.

"You want me to talk to him?"

Kate swallows hard. "Could you?" She asks, voice rising with soft hope.

Somewhere there's a niggling voice insistently poking at the ridiculousness of the way this turned serious, but it is. She really is worried about her littlest and maybe he needs this.

"Put him on," Rick says.

[x]

"In your dreams, buddy." Ryan hears Kate laughing as she rounds the corner, two steaming mugs in hand and her phone tucked against her shoulder.

He nods a thanks as she puts a mug down on his corner of her desk.

"Ryan, you want to talk to your girlfriend?" Kate asks, holding the phone out to him.

His eyes flick up to hers, bright and expectant. "That's Castle?" he asks and Kate laughs, nodding and pressing the phone into his hand.

"Hey, Bro," Ryan chirps into the phone and Kate sinks into her chair smiling softly at how easily Ryan recovers.

"Miss you?" Ryan snorts, "Nah, bro, but I'm pretty sure I've seen Espo sniffling at his desk."

Kate rolls her eyes and Ryan blushes. He stands and steps away from Kate, perching himself on his own desk.

The rest of the conversation is hushed and Kate worries but when she twists to catch a look at him Ryan is smiling, he's smirking at something inappropriate and looking guilty. She squints at him and chuckles as he quickly turns his back on her and whispers something into the phone.

She goes back to her coffee.

[x]

"Writer boy wants to say goodnight," Ryan teases, tapping Kate on the shoulder and handing her phone back to her.

She glares and he rushes to take her empty mug back to the break-room and reheat his own.

"Hey there, writer boy," Kate husks, her smile breaking open when Castle groans.

"It's writer _man_ , Detective," He finally squeaks, only half-recovered, less than half-convincing.

Kate hums, stifling a laugh when Rick groans again. She hears the break-room door close and sighs, "He okay?"

"He'll be fine, Kate, maybe he just needed the Castle touch," he says. There's a beat and then he's rushing on and she's laughing, "That sounded… that's not what I meant."

Kate snickers, "Night, Castle."

"Ugh," Castle complains. "Until tomorrow, Beckett."

[x]

"So… not tonight, aye?" Ryan smirks as he sits back down beside her, fingers curled around his mug.

Her eyes go wide. "That's not – I didn't – " she stammers.

Ryan drops his palm onto her forearm, warm fingers pressing gently into her skin. He smiles softly at her flustered bumbling. "I'm happy for you, Beckett, whatever it is."

Beckett sighs. "It's not… Look, Ryan, it's complicated and we're not - "

He cuts her off, shaking his head. "None of my business, Boss," he says. Her eyes meet his and he promises, "None of anybody else's either."

She nods, throat tight with gratitude. "Thanks, Kev."


	15. Chapter 15

His fingers vacillate over the keys and the thought runs out. He tugs at the threads of it, traces the sentence and sighs over the clumpy words. It reads like exhaustion, like some decayed and tired thing. He clenches his eyes and goes back and back until there's only blank space.

His fingers itch, restless and burning with something raw. It's her. Details of her. He scrambles through his bedside drawer, comes back with her leather bound pages and a pen. The words are pouring out of him. Fragments of moments. Pieces of her, of him, but then it's something else. Something desperate and screaming that doesn't connect.

He pulls his hand back, hovers over the spot of ink and jerks away. He pushes the notebook away and grabs at a sheet of paper at the corner of his bedside table. Something Alexis asked him to sign, a permission slip? He flips it over and the words come. It's something wary but insistent.

He goes back to his drawer, tosses through mountains of junk and comes up with a fistful of papers. More and more words tumble out of him. Careful details. Disconnected and tied together. It's something awful and pretty and broken.

He scratches the words down as they come, clear or muffled or jumbled up. Lays them all out even though he doesn't know where they ought to go. He's trembling with it as he pushes away scrawled pages and flattens out each new space.

He's writing like relief, body turning liquid as everything leaches out of him, when there's a knock on the door and he knows it's her by the tension in his hips.

He blinks, turns his head to the window, disorientated. It's bright, sunlight glinting off the windowpane and he worries. It's her. It's glaring daylight and she's here. He doesn't expect her in the daylight, has come to think of her now as some nocturnal thing, waits for her like moonlight. The speed of fear is debilitating.

[x]

He finds her there, arms crossed over her chest and brow furrowed, back leaning against the wall opposite his door. "Everything okay?" He worries, loud and awkward.

"No," she huffs petulantly, heel hitting the wall hard, scuffing as she pushes herself off and steps toward him.

She's pouting, overtly pouting, and he stares, he smiles. He almost laughs.

Kate sighs, wrists dropping to her sides and shoulders curling in. Her head drops and the words hit the ground. "You gonna let me in?"

He jerks back into himself and coughs. "Yeah. Sorry, come in," he says, sweeping his arm out as he pulls the door wider and ushers her in.

He pulls her sheer black jacket off her shoulders, eyes slipping closed on a slow blink as his fingers brush over the warm skin of her neck and her hair flicks up, over the collar, lifting the soft smell of her into the air as he turns to hang it in the closet.

She kicks her heels off and her head drops down under his chin.

He nudges her forward, one hand pressed firmly against the base of her spine. He swallows hard, surprised when she doesn't shift, when her body settles heavily into his palm. There's nothing of the fight she arrived with left in it. It's a tired, devastated weight that has him suddenly breaking. "Kate," he whispers over her hair, his other fingers reaching out and curling around her hip.

She sighs against him, fingers slotting between his and tugging his body further into her.

A body rippling sob suddenly breaks through her and he shifts. Both his hands work under her shirt, the warmth of his palms sliding over her hips, around her stomach, dwarfing her body. His hips press into her back, legs spread either side of hers, pressing her together and his chin comes to rest on her shoulder, his rough cheek scratching gently along hers.

"Don't," he begs. "Don't. You're okay," he whispers, lips right beside hers. Another tear escapes. He turns, kisses it off her cheek and settles there, inhaling her falling pieces.

He tugs her in tighter and her hands come to rest on his forearms, crossed around her body. She relaxes and her body lifts and falls on his breath.

Silence.

After a long moment of gently swaying her body, he slowly uncurls, pressing a last lingering kiss to her cheek. His hands run up and down her sides, skin against skin until his fingertips trip over the lace band of her bra and drop away from her body as she shivers.

She slams her eyes closed, blowing a breath out her nose and he nudges her forward. "Go sit, I'll bring you some water."

[x]

He drops down into the armchair adjacent her seat on the couch, leaving a glass of water on the coffee table.

She smiles gently at him and he tips his head, nakedly taking in every detail of her. He raises an eyebrow, smiling softly back and picking at an unravelling thread in his sweatpants, waiting her out.

Kate sighs, pulling a cushion to her chest and tucking her knees up. "She shut us down," she mumbles.

"Hmm?" Castle hums, distracted by the curl of her bare toes against his couch.

Kate lifts her gaze, finds him open-mouthed and soft-eyed, taking her in. She rolls her eyes and clears her throat, smiling when he startles back to her. "I said," she enunciates, "Gate shut us down."

"She," Castle starts, stops, teeth clacking together. "Why?" He finally gets out.

Kate drops her cheek to the cushion she's curled around, her soft curls cascading over its edges as she blinks slowly. "No new leads on the shooter," she admits miserably.

She catches him flinch from the corner of her eye and grits her teeth against it. She brings her eyes back to his, reaches out to catch his wrist. "Rick, I'm so sorry," she whispers and he shakes his head.

He catches her eyes and she shudders at the depth of faith in his gaze. "But -" he prompts.

She smiles. "But," she says, sinking back into the couch, "we changed tactics. The boys started looking into - " She starts to say, stopping suddenly to twist over her shoulder.

Her eyes sweep over the loft, move to the stairs. "At school," he says and she comes back to him, " _School_ school and acting school, that is."

Kate swallows. "Right," she nods and continues, "so the boys started looking into Montgomery, McAllister and Raglan because we know they were pulling in big money with those ransoms so -"

"Maybe that money fell straight into the pockets of whoever ordered your mother's murder," Castle agrees, his body straightening up, eyes turning bright, "so there's probably a money trail."

Kate smiles brightly, some tortured part of her waking up with the ache of missing him. She nods. "Yeah and we think we've got the bank." The smile drops from her face and he frowns.

"And that's bad because?" He prods, planting his elbows on his knees and tipping toward her.

Kate's hand unclenches from the cushion and she drops her palm face up on his armrest as she deflates. He grabs her fingers, tangles them up with his and pulls them under his chin, rests on their joined knuckles.

"Because," Kate sighs, "the bank closed down years ago and nobody knows where the records are. That's what we were working on when Gates shut us down."

He lowers their hands to his thigh and shifts closer, resting on the edge of his seat. "And you couldn't tell her about the bank without unveiling the third cop," he concludes.

Kate's gaze drifts sorely out the window and he squeezes her fingers, pulling her back. "It's okay, Kate," he says. Her lips purse unhappily and he tugs on her hand. "Look at me," he presses, waiting for her eyes to settle on his. "It's okay," he promises.

Kate pulls her hand away, curling back around the cushion, retreating into herself.

"So Gates shut the case down," he says before she can disappear completely; he blinks down at his watch and continues, "and you… ran away?"

Kate smirks, a lopsided little thing that stubbornly remains only half amused. "No," she drawls, "she kicked us out, told us to _go home, get some rest._ "

Her impression of the new Captain gives him the shivers, something entirely creepy about this woman who goes by Sir. It runs cold up his spine and Kate chews at her lip, biting back a smile.

Castle glares at her and moves on. "So where are the files now?"

Kate tips her head at him innocently. "She shut us down, Castle," she says quietly.

"Oh," Rick nods, faux seriousness lacing his tone like a wink, "and you let it go. I see, sorry about that, Detective, my mistake."

Kate smirks. "They're in my car," she finally gives up.

Castle laughs. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "Bring 'em up," he says.

The smile falls from her lips. Her brow furrows and her lips purse. "Castle, no, I don't think -"

"Kate," he warns, cutting her off, "bring them up." It's verging on the edge of a growl but she's trapped in the debate of it.

"Beckett," he snaps, "It's _my_ case." His voice is fire, hot and demanding and tearing straight through her.

"Okay," she says, reaching out to sooth him, running her palm over his thigh. "Alright, just… relax, Castle, I'll go get them," she says, waiting for his body to settle back into the chair before she goes.

[x]

Alexis trips through the door, yelling out a "Hey Dad" as she drops her bag at the base of the stairs and turns to look for him.

Kate twists over the back of the couch and Alexis startles. "Oh, Detecti-" Beckett glares at her and she quickly corrects herself. "Kate. Hi," she says, ducking behind her hair to hide her blush.

"Hey," Beckett smiles, "how was school?"

"Fine," Alexis grumbles and they both frown. She slumps over to her father and smacks a kiss to his cheek before dropping heavily onto the couch beside to Kate.

Kate nudges her with her elbow. "You good, kid?" she asks quietly and Alexis lifts her head off the back of the couch to look at her.

The girl forces a smile and nods. She turns her attention to the files strewn over the coffee table, the floor, her father's lap, and her eyes go wide. "Is this Dad's case?" She questions, spine straightening as she turns to Kate.

"No," Kate chokes, shaking her head emphatically, "No. It's my mother's."

"Oh," Alexis sighs. "I'm sorry," she utters, quickly moving to leave their space.

Kate reaches out; she grabs hold of the girl's wrist and tugs her back down. "It's alright," she promises when Alexis remains stiff. Kate flicks her gaze to Castle and he smiles, nods. She turns back to Alexis and finishes, "I don't really want you seeing all this stuff, but you can stay, if it helps."

It's more than he expected and his spine goes stiff. Kate catches the movement and looks to him. Alexis looks to him too, her eyes settling on him, searching quietly for permission and she looks hopeful but it's… too much.

"Alexis," Kate says, her eyes still trained on Castle, "can you just give us a second?"

She feels the girl's weight lift off the couch and watches as Rick's eyes follow her to the kitchen. "Rick," she says and he tugs his gaze back to her, "this is your call but when you were…" she hesitates and he jumps in.

"When I was what?"

Kate sighs and shakes her head. "Look, Castle, I know she's barely eighteen but that's only a year younger than I was and I - I was with her when you were shot, when you were in hospital and she's," Kate pauses, searching for the right words, "she's tenacious, headstrong. She's demanding and she was so - god, Castle, she's been so sturdy. She's been through hell and her reaction is… still brewing."

Castle swallows thickly, his vision blurs, eyes brimming with pain for his child. Kate reaches out; she presses her palms to his and holds on. "It's your choice but just remember, her _father_ was shot, so no matter what we do, she's in this already and I'm sorry… you have no idea how sorry I am for that, but… you need to trust me when I say that it is important that she at least knows that I trust her with this."

"Why?" He chokes, squeezing her fingers too tight. She winces and wriggles the digits until he loosens his grip.

Kate pulls in a long breath. "She and I have," she looks up at his paling face and rushes on, "Castle, we have a relationship outside of you and that's important, it's important that I -"

"I don't understand," Castle cuts her off and his voice is so desperate, so pleading and soft it breaks her heart.

She sighs, "I know, Rick. I know you don't understand and that's why this is your choice, she'll always look to you, just like she did, but the option of it had to come from me, you've gotta trust me on that."

He searches her face, his knuckles turn white around hers and the skin around his lips loses all colour. "You think she needs this?" He chokes.

Kate shrugs. "I think she's hurting. I don't know, it's just, it's all I have to offer her."

Rick sighs, his eyes dropping back to the loose thread on his pants. "I don't," he starts and stops, reconsidering, "She's my baby, Kate. I don't want her to…"

"End up like me?" Beckett supplies.

His eyes shoot back to her, an apology resting on his tongue, but when he catches her gaze there's no hurt there, no accusation, just a quiet kind of empathy.

"It's fine," she says, "and I don't know her well enough to suggest anything here, Castle, but she did come to the precinct one night."

His eyes go wide and his nostrils flare so she rushes on, "She wasn't there for long. I took her straight home, but I saw her taking in the details and there was a fight there, in her somewhere, I saw it flare."

His focus goes to his daughter, pouring a glass of water in the kitchen, her eyes so heavy. He comes back to Beckett, searching for an answer she doesn't have and she flinches. It's an apology, he knows. Everything is.

"Alexis!" he calls out and Kate jerks away, pulling her hands out of his grasp and settling back into her seat.

His daughter steps back into the space beside Kate and he takes her in, her hollowed out body and drawn face. He swallows hard and asks her quietly, "Is this - do you really want to do this, Pumpkin? It's a lot to take in and I'm not sure that -"

"Kate," Alexis says, stopping her father.

Kate looks up at her and Alexis searches the detective's face. "Are you sure? You don't have to do this."

Her voice is steady, so sympathetic and strong it knocks Kate back. She turns back to Castle and he nods. "I'm sure, Alexis, but only if it's something you think you need. You have to be sure about this."

Alexis nods and sits down, close to Kate as she slowly takes in all the splayed files.

Kate looks back to Rick and he softens for a moment before his eyes go wide. "Beckett, what about?"

She shakes her head. "It's okay, if we get to that, it's okay. She's your daughter so… immediate family."

He nods and she turns back to his baby girl. "Alexis, listen to me," she says, her voice hardening, "you know how dangerous this is. So the only time you are going to look at this is with me and you are not to say a word to anyone, you are not to get involved, do you understand?"

The girl's spine straightens, her shoulders knock back and she frowns. "They shot my father," she snaps.

"Alexis!" Castle warns but Kate lifts a hand out behind her, easing him back.

She looks his daughter in the eye. "I know. Alexis, _I know_ , that's why I'm giving you the choice to stay but your safety is always going to be the priority. Beyond all of this, it is your safety that's paramount to both of us, okay? And you need to respect that, otherwise, I don't care what you say or don't say, we _will not_ do this." It's strict and uncompromising and Alexis stares.

She takes a moment to take in the detective, scanning her face, before she finally slumps. She nods, sighing, "Yeah, I understand. I just… I want to at least understand what this is. I need to know why."

Kate reaches out, running a hand over the girls rounded shoulder. "I know, but, Alexis, this wasn't about him," she says, bracing herself for the backlash.

Alexis doesn't even flinch. The girl locks eyes with Beckett and there's a fierceness there that's terrifying. "It doesn't matter," she growls.


	16. Chapter 16

They trace the files to a warehouse that once housed the head offices of the bank's parent company. After a few hours of searching for information on the storage facility Alexis squeezes Kate's hand and slips upstairs, leaving the two of them tumbling back into the case, swallowed up entirely without the anchor of her.

"Beckett," Castle calls and she lifts her head. "Check this out," he says, spinning the iPad toward her and zooming into the article covering a warehouse fire.

"No," Kate breathes, swallowing a sob. She pushes the iPad away, tipping her head back against the couch and closing her eyes against the flames.

Castle goes to reach for her but his body screams, protesting against the stiffness he's allowed, every inch of him burning as white hot pain flares out from his side and he crumples into himself on a groan.

Her eyes fly open, flick to the window, glowing hazily with orange city light and she winces. "God, Castle, we've been sitting here for hours, why didn't you say something?"

He shrugs, winces, and she's out of her seat, standing between his knees before his eyes can slip open again. "Come on," she whispers, her hands gripping his forearms to gently help him stand.

His knees give out and his skin burns, face purpling with the searing pain. She shoulders the weight of him and stumbles. "Easy," she whispers as his rapid breaths puff out over her hair.

He steadies himself after a moment and his words wash out over her forehead. "I'll be fine. Let's just move into my office. It's, um, a little more comfortable for me in there."

Beckett hums and steps with him, manoeuvring his body slowly into his office. He goes to reach for his desk, breath coming hard and fast with exertion but Kate reaches out and tucks his hand back against her side.

"What?" He puffs.

"Bed, Castle," she says, "Come on. I'm too tired to argue with you about it."

"But-"

"What did I just say?" She questions, lifting her chin to catch his eyes.

He sighs, his body growing heavier over her shoulders as she tugs him gently along.

She presses him softly onto his bed, swiping her thumb over his sweating forehead and squats down between his knees, hands braced on his thighs. "You okay?" She whispers up to him.

He nods. "Yeah," he sighs, "I'll be fine. Thanks."

She reaches out and flicks on his bedside lamp, the whole room burning in soft gold. Kate bends back down, her fingers finding the Velcro running the length of his slippers, slowly tugging it loose and his hand buries impulsively in her hair.

Her soft tresses flood over his fingers and he goes tense with the fierce intimacy of the moment. "Kate," he whispers and her temple drops to the inside of his knee, fingers pressing into the back of his shoe and slowly, carefully, pulling it away from his foot.

"Don't," she exhales over his sweatpants, moving silently to the other foot.

His fingers slip through her hair, curl around her earlobe and she sighs, her fingers circling around the skin of his ankle.

Kate turns her cheek onto his knee and they settle themselves there for a long moment as he rakes his fingers through her hair, over and over, splaying the soft curls out over his thigh.

Her eyes slip closed and he swallows hard. "Stay." The word falls from his mouth before he can catch it and he grits his teeth when her body goes tense against his calf.

She shakes her head, curls falling off his thigh, tangling up beside his knee and then she's rising, lifting his ankles and turning with him, laying him out so gently on his bed. His head hits the pillow and the air pours out of his lungs, leaving him flat and unmoving.

Only then, standing at the foot of his bed does Kate notice the crumpled papers scattered over the rumpled duvet, the leather bound notebook and his still open laptop. "You write in bed?" She asks, unable to stop the curiosity leaking out from some girlish part of her that fell in love with the writer long before the man.

His eyes clear and he tips his head to the side, blinking slowly at the mess of things. "Oh," his mouth falls open as he plants his palms beside his hips, pushing up into a sitting position. Her hands are at his shoulders in an instant, holding his weight and propping his pillows up behind him.

He settles back and tugs on her wrist, pulling her down to sit by his hip while he catches his breath. "Not usually," he finally says and she reaches out to brush the hair off his forehead, "I just tend to get a little stiff and sore still, obviously, so I've been propping myself up here lately."

Her hand drops to her thigh, fingers digging hard into her flesh. "I'm sorry," she whispers, chin resting against her chest and he reaches out, curls his fingers into the crook of her elbow.

"No," he croaks, "not your fault, I got caught up in it, that's all. I just, don't normally sit in the same position for so long, but it'll be fine. No harm done."

She searches his face in the dim light, he's drowning in the shadow of her but his eyes are bright, honest, so she nods. "Nikki?" She wonders.

She chokes when he shakes his head. "Kate?" She questions meekly, as though her chest might not withstand an answer.

"Yeah," he replies softly, unwilling to disturb the air between them. He tightens his hold on her elbow, runs his thumb over the sharp jut of bone and soft skin to keep her. "Well, yes and no," he continues, "I'm not sure actually, I don't really know what it is, I never got a chance to read it, but it's something… new."

"You don't know what it is until you've read it?" She smiles at him, amused above all else. " _You_ wrote it," she reminds.

He chuckles and his hand drops away from her skin. "Yeah," he smiles, "but it was something that I'm not sure of, I trusted it though, so I just put the words down. Maybe it's…" He trails off and despite the way her shadow crawls over him she can make out a soft blush rising up over his cheek bones, fanning out over the V of his chest.

"Maybe it's?" She presses, smiling at the way he turns shy, vulnerable when it comes to his art despite all the ego.

He clears his throat. He rips his eyes away from her and drops his gaze out the window, soaking up the broken city lights. "Poetry," he breathes.

"You," Kate stammers, "you write poetry?"

He brings his eyes back to her and shakes his head, hair ruffling up against the pillow. "No," he says, smiling when she frowns. "Well, sometimes a line drops out of me here or there and the rhythm is right. There's a certain melody to it and it always feels like I'm listening to somebody else's song on those days, like the whole thing is external. I love that feeling but I wouldn't say I write poetry, I've never really found my voice for it, you know?"

"No. I don't know, but it makes sense," Kate smirks. Her eyes drop to the scattered pages beside him. "So today?" she asks and he follows her gaze.

"Today I was writing without intention and the rhythm was smooth, effortless, but I didn't have a chance to read it, so I'm not really sure where it goes, who it belongs to," he explains.

Her fingers curl around his wrist and bring him back to her. "But you think it might be poetry?" She asks.

He shrugs and winces again as it pull through his side, sending sparks skirting his ribcage. Her warm fingers press to his collar bone, palm settling softly over his chest and he looks up to find her eyes dark with pain. He swallows hard. "Poetry..." he repeats, "maybe."

Kate nods, rising to gather up his laptop and notebook. She sets them on the nightstand and turns back, carefully smoothing out all his crumpled pages and stacking them up on top of his computer. Her palm flattens on the final page and she turns to him, lamplight catching the slope of her nose. "May I read it?" She whispers.

His body goes tense. He swallows thickly. "Kate, I don't – I mean, I'm not even sure what it says."

She shrugs and he catches the light in her eyes, remembers the way her head had tipped back against his couch and her whole body had clenched tight against the flames turning her final lead to ashes. There's something soft sweeping over the devastation now and he sighs. He nods.

She shuffles around and drops back down beside his hip, the single sheet held delicately between her fingertips. She dips forward, presses the page into the narrow swell of light and he watches intently as her mouth silently shapes the words.

Her eyes light up and fall closed and her breathing shallows out, her body going still and quiet beside him. "Wow," she whispers. A tear tips off the cliff of her cheekbone, glistening in the golden light.

"Kate," he panics, fingers curling tight around her thigh.

She shakes her head, easing his fingers from her and dropping them against his chest, tangled with hers. "Castle, it's beautiful," she sighs.

He doesn't know what it is, what it says, was it hers? His eyes go wide and she sees his throat working, swallowing hard against something frightened.

Her focus drifts back to his shaky handwriting, scrawled out in choppy patterns on the back of what looks to be a tax invoice and her lungs constrict. Her heart pounds out a painful note as she takes in the words a second, third time, and it tips her forward.

She kisses him, hard and then soft. Her lips meet his and he's stunned. His mouth drops open and she sucks his bottom lip between hers. She nips at it and sooths the sting with the warmth of her tongue.

He doesn't pull away, doesn't reach for her and she's kissing him. She kisses him again and he's frozen and maybe he doesn't understand. Maybe he doesn't know that he's asked for a promise and she's telling him yes, yes, even when the streets break.

The words scrunch up in her fist and she presses them to his chest. The paper crinkles against his skin and suddenly she's going. Her weight shifts from the bed and her lips come once more to his. "We're still alive," she whispers and then she's gone.

He's dumbstruck. Drowning in the taste of her and reaching for air. His fingers twist around the words she pressed into him and his eyes fly open. He twists quickly to his side, pushes the paper back under the light –

 _Tell me about the dream where they're sweeping bones off the mirrored streets._

 _Our hands red and you running, a crest of white in the Dead Sea._

 _You, the magician's girl, always disappearing._

 _Tell me how our breath broke._

 _Static crackling, I'm singing on your radio again, screaming from your vest._

 _Say it again, repeat and repeat,_

 _'Fuck you. I love you.' It's all we have left._

 _Look at the streetlights smashing windows. That means it's midnight, that means we're here._

 _Swallowing dead light and howling._

 _Hungering like primordial wolves._

 _Kiss me again and promise, promise me once: you'll still love me when the streets break._

 _Darling, answer me now, are we still alive?_

He feels her words washing down his neck, phantom but beautiful - We're still alive. Later, in the instant before his eyelids collapse, his body shudders with everything beneath it - Fuck you. I love you.


	17. Chapter 17

A siren whines past, sawing at his nerves as he trips out into the night. He's breathless, smiling despite the strain of the glass doors, and she's there against the screaming light, silhouetted by emergency like the most natural thing.

He presses a disposable travel mug into her hand and she looks up, surprised. Her eyes flicker briefly with a smile that doesn't bloom and he's immediately sore with it.

Her fingers curl instinctively into the warmth, her brow furrows and he sees it going wrong. It's familiar and strange - the shyness of his fingers and the warmth against her palm - it's enough to break their new dysfunctional pattern, this nightly solace. It's enough to crack her open tonight.

"Coffee?" She chokes and he hears it all, sees it in the dimpling of her chin.

"You ah," he pauses, debating over the right words. He shakes his head because it's a simple thing, really, or it used to be, "on the phone… you just, sounded like you needed it." He shrugs uncertainly.

Her mouth twists into a sad smile and he sees how fragile the day has made her. "Thanks," she whispers, reaching out to run her fingernail down the back of his palm. Her head dips and rises. "It's been a long day," she admits.

He shrugs again, certain this time, and she looks at him long enough to see that he means it. That the gesture is an old one, a deliberate one, and there is still so much of them left in themselves.

A loose string of cars line up and linger at the intersection as a stumbling knot of women, dressed in flashing pink veils and sashes trip across the street. The steam curling up from her mug catches the headlights, trails over her cheekbone, settles in her hair, and Castle closes his eyes against the way her mouth curls around the lip of the mug in a soft pout.

She hums around the sweet mouthful and the bitterness cutting through. Her eyes close, her head drops back, hair dripping down her spine and Castle swallows against the hopeless fact that even the way she drinks her coffee almost puts him on his ass.

Her throat bobs, her chin drops and he kisses her. Quick and soft in the thin swish of light from a passing cab. His lips skip of hers and she startles, she smiles. "Hi," he sighs.

She chuckles, surprise rippling through her and spouting out in soft waves. "Hi," she parrots with her eyes still closed.

The pad of his thumb sweeps across her lips and she sighs into his skin, because despite the ways they've kissed before, there's something new, something intentional and terrifying about the simplicity of _hi_ and his lips. Her mouth falls open and she almost asks - _Castle, what is this?_

"I hate that you're not okay," Castle finally murmurs near her temple.

Her palm comes to his chest, knocking him gently back, forcing a breath between them.

His shadow consumes her and he reaches out. He tugs on her fingers and spins, settling her under the streetlight.

She frowns up at him. She crosses her arms over her chest and squints. "I don't believe you _asked_ ," she notes.

He tips his head, surveying her through the hair slipping over his forehead and then his lips purse, one eyebrow shoots up and the years between them fall away. It's him and her at the beginning of them and she wants to smack him. "Didn't have to," he says smugly.

Her heel strikes hard at the concrete. Her toe taps out an impatient beat, like she's re-read this story to tattered pages, like she knows it's about her and it isn't flattering at all.

He smirks and sets out in a wide circle, prowling the outskirts of her haloing light. Her eyes track him along the left arc, unnerved by the pieces of her in his bones; in the way his body stalks by, tall and straight with his hands knotted behind his back, paced to the heartbeat of her.

"You see, Detective, I'll tell you how it would have gone," He says, voice low and measured, smug beneath it all. Each sound falls between his footsteps as he circles around the back of her.

The pattern of his speech and breathing creeps up her spine, the uncanny reflection of her in him, lifting her body. "You have nothing, Mr Castle," she cracks, useless, but determined all the same.

The rhythmic fall of his shoes against the concrete falls silent behind her and she shivers despite the stupidity of the chill. "Really?" He drawls down her neck.

Tiny hairs rise up, catching in the hazy streetlight and he presses on, circling again, caging her in her own space. "So, Miss Beckett," he says, dropping the Detective from her title and making her squirm, "had I asked – Are you okay, Kate? – how might you have responded?"

He pauses in front of her. He drops his face down into the light and sweeps his palm out, prompting.

She glares. She lifts her chin defiantly and rolls her eyes.

Castle raises an eyebrow. He crosses his arms over his chest and suffocates her with silence.

They burn together in a stubborn moment before she finally grumbles, "I'm fine."

"You're fine…" He drags out triumphantly, stepping back into the arc he's tracing around her. "And you see," he dives back in, gathering spiralled momentum, "I would have said okay."

He pauses behind her and she almost rounds on him. Almost. He lingers there a moment, builds it all up into a suspended silence and then kicks on, around her. "Though, I wouldn't have believed it, because…"

He closes the circle then. He stalks quickly into her space and wraps his arm tight around her waist. He tugs her hard and fast into him, one swift motion and she's on her toes.

The warmth of her mug presses against his chest. Her free hand curls into his collar and she gasps. "It's a lie, isn't it, Miss Beckett?" He husks.

Her mouth drops open. Her breath fans out over his lips and he smiles, he knows he's got her. She nods, dazed, and he drops her.

He peels his body away from hers and slips back into the shadows. "What happened, Kate?"

She drops her head, panting. "That was a nasty trick, Mr Castle," she murmurs.

He chuckles and steps back under the streetlight, smiling softly. "There's this girl," he says, drawing closer. He steps between her feet, peering down at her. "She taught me everything I know."

Kate hums, the vibration of it rippling from her chest to his. "Maybe," she purrs against his neck, licking her lips, "she ought to have taught you not to play with fire."

Castle gulps. His victory lost so suddenly to the smoke in her voice. Her fingers clench tight around a fistful of his shirt and he falters. A flare of self-destruction ignites between them and he wants to call the sirens back, tell them that their falling, they'll be in ruins tonight.

The harsh puffing of a passing jogger lifts and fades and the moment runs thin between them. It frays down the middle, snaps, and they tumble out of it, into the next so swiftly.

Castle steps back. He hooks a finger under her chin and brings her eyes to his. His voice turns soft and lovely in the space of a heartbeat. "What happened?" He repeats.

She sighs, miserable and tired. He needs to know and so much of her knows he deserves it, that the story is his too and it's not fair at all. Most of her knows, but everything is aching. "It's a long story," she says.

His finger drops from her chin and his shadow lifts and falls along the street on a lazy shrug. A cab zips past and she sees the darkness in his eyes. "It's not like I can go anywhere very fast." It's half a joke.

She shakes her head but she's smiling. She nudges at his hip to set him walking and it's less defeat than it is fairness. "We found him. The reporting officer," she says, fierce and solemn at once and he knows it's bad.

He turns to her, hesitant and expectant and she nods. "Rod Halstead. Seasoned professional," she explains as they round the corner, " _Chief_ Halstead, now."

[x]

A motorbike tears past, shattering the air around them. Her fingers curl around his wrist, press tight and fall away a second later, as Castle breathes through the claws of panic.

He barely falters, steps along beside her. He buries himself in her soft voice and she's a stupid amount of proud of him despite the way the day hangs around her neck.

"He said I was out of line, like a warning, and I just… snapped," she admits, tugging on his sleeve to turn him left.

He blinks down at her, wondering about tonight's change of course but she's caught in the memory, grappling retrospectively with every detail, so he follows, and waits.

"God Castle," she says, shaking her head, "half the squad had gathered around and I looked them in the eye, I looked him in the eye and - " she stops, purses her lips. She turns her face to the street and tosses her empty mug in a trashcan as they trundle along.

Castle pulls all the pieces together in his mind. The regret leaking out of her doesn't make sense, not now, not the way the story's gone. "What did you say?"

She turns back to him and there's enough light on this strip for him to see how heavy this is. He reaches for her fingers but she pulls away. She sweeps her hand roughly through her hair and shakes her head again.

"I told him I wasn't the one who falsified that report." Her voice is burning with residue of the moment and the venom knocks him back, even now.

Her words taste like blood in his mouth and his body lurches to a halt. He wants to say something. He thinks he ought to, but his voice runs silent.

She stops a few paces on and he steps into her. Still, he wants to say something. There's an apology on his tongue but it's wrong, it's the wrong thing. It's barely an apology, it's… _I should have been there._

The night is still crackling, lingering warmth from the burning summer day setting everything in a static-electric buzz. He reaches out and smooths the ends of her sparking hair with the flat of his palm. She huffs. She knows it's an apology and it's all wrong.

"I went at him. I told him I'd find them; told him to tell them I'm coming for them," she admits. She's trapped herself under a flashing dance-studio light, the constant flicker throwing shattering flecks of gold over her bowed head.

He swallows hard against the defeat in her. His fists ball up at his sides. "We will find them, Beckett," he growls.

Her head snaps up and she sighs. She shakes her head. He's angry about the wrong thing, though she's angry about that too. "I know." She nods. She reaches out to run her fingers over his shoulder. "I know," she repeats.

He frowns down at her. His jaw is tight. He's still angry, but he's waiting too, he wants to understand. He wants to put his anger with hers.

She considers him for a moment. She thumbs at the corner of his lip as if it will ease him, and it does, it settles his body in the street. "Then?" He presses, catching her fingers in his.

"Esposito tried to pull me back but I just… " Her voice sighs out and she dips her eyes, swings their joined hands from side to side.

"Yeah," Castle hums, "I know how that goes."

Kate lifts her face to him. She smiles sadly. It's an apology too. He nods. He knows. They're both sorry for it all.

He reaches out and lays his palm flat against the base of her spine, setting them walking again. "Then what happened?"

Her elbow lifts to his ribs, bringing their joined hands up between them. She nudges him gently into the street and he tugs her along.

It's a parallel path but it's quieter and walled in on this side. It's better for him. "Ryan jumped in," she says when their feet hit the sidewalk again.

Castle falters, pulling them both to a jolting stop. He looks down at her, wide-eyed. He stares.

Kate nods. "Anyway," she says, tugging on his hand and dropping them back into a slow walk, "Ryan was… calm, as per usual. Measured. He said that he found it a little odd that Halstead remembered the fire so quickly, given that he barely glanced at the file. He asked him if there was something particularly memorable about it."

"And?" Castle puffs. It's rough and strained and he winces. This street is further, steeper than she usually takes him, but her body is moving with purpose. He knows that she's going somewhere whether _she_ knows or not and… he wants to follow, in spite of the tightness in his chest.

Kate's body goes stiff. She frowns. "Rick -" she starts, body angling to turn them back, but he shakes his head.

He tightens his hold on her fingers and presses on up the hill. "What'd he say?" He huffs, demanding despite the pain.

She sighs, sweeping her thumb over his to slow their pace. "He lost it. He demanded we leave his station."

Castle glances at her and hums. She nods. "Yeah," she agrees. "Yeah… but then he said the fire was in no way memorable but that he wasn't old enough to forget what he had said _yesterday_."

"Yesterday?" Castle squeaks, swallowing hard and scowling when she looks like she'll stop him.

Kate huffs. "Yesterday," she repeats.

The energy that sung through the three of them in the moment ripples through him now. His hand clenches around hers. His body surges hard up the hill, but she tugs him back. "Relax," she scolds.

He settles next to her, face flushed and eyes burning. She raises her palm to his chest, his too, the two of them settled over his straining heart. "Just… please… calm down," she reminds, gently this time.

He nods. Sighs. "Sorry," he puffs, "Sorry. But… yesterday?"

She considers him for a long moment, counts the space between each heart beat beneath her palm and waits out his body. "He said some young woman had come in yesterday, already asked him the same questions. Then he said he will not have any more people coming into his station and throwing around wild accusations. He threatened to call Gates, so we had to get out of there," She finally explains.

Anger licks up her spine. He catches it. Her eyes cloud and he sees her sifting back over the details. He tugs his fingers from hers and wraps both hands over her shoulders. He shakes hard. "What woman?" He demands.

The sharp edge of his voice brings her back to him. Her shoulders go soft beneath his palms. "I don't know."

They're stopped in front of a broken bar light, the green bulb flickering to life and dying out again, buzzing with every resurrection. It lights her up in snatches. "You…" He falters. She's motionless in the pulsing light and he frowns, anger sizzling in his veins. "What do you mean you don't know?" He snaps.

She tugs her body out of his hold and leaves him stumbling. She spins back into him furiously. Turns. Paces in circles. "I don't _know_ ," she growls. The insistent light catches her eyes and she's wild. "Gates has been sniffing out our blood. She's in and out of the precinct all night and - "

"You can't all be there," Castle concludes. He reaches out and grabs her elbow as she passes by him, reeling her back. His shadow eats her up again and he sighs. "Who's on it?"

Her body goes limp. "Ryan," she mutters, "because-"

"He's fastest on surveillance, got all those buddies in tech," Castle agrees.

He smooths out her collar. He runs his fingers out over her shoulder, down the length of her arm and grabs at her fingers again. He knots them up. "He's a good cop. One of the best," He reassures, because it's the least and most he has.

Kate's fingers flinch against his. She lifts her face to him and frowns. "I know," she sighs. She shakes her head. "Castle, it's not that… it's just-"

"Kate," he ventures. He curls his fingers at the shell of her ear. "It can't always be you."

She drops her head. His fingers slip through her hair and he palms the back of her head, tugging her in. Her forehead drops between his collar bones and she sighs.

"It can't always be you," he repeats and they both fall silent.

The traffic peters out in a strange act of privacy as Castle turns his face to the sky. The high-rising lights wash out the stars, the constellations never quite reach New York City, but he draws his own into the sky. He connects the still burning lights into a bow and arrow, the fish end of a mermaid, a sail boat. He revels in the smallness of them beneath it all and drops his cheek to the crown of her head. He pulls her closer.

She twists. She presses her ear to his heart and settles there for a long moment before finally reclaiming his hand.

She tips her face up, presses a soft kiss to his jaw and tugs at his hand once more. "Come on," she says softly, "I want to take you somewhere."


	18. Chapter 18

The musky air vacuums out into narrowed darkness and blasts back a moment later in harsh light. Kate's hair lifts on the gust of trailing air, the short strands framing her face blow across her eyes. She blinks up at him through the whipped ends and her fingers squeeze around his as he lets out a breath. The effort this is taking screams over his face and she worries. "This okay?" She questions, her hair still fluttering out behind her, bathed in streaming light.

He watches the concern leak into the corners of her mouth, but her hand is warm against his and her eyes are bright despite it all. There's a gentle hope there, something timid and shy, alluring. He clears his throat and his lips tug up in the corners as he nudges her on, the sharp jut of his wrist knocking against hers. "Yeah." He nods. "Let's go."

The doors click, sliding open on a drawn out hiss. A thin crowd spills out, twisting sideways and slipping past them as she tugs him over the gap, into the stale space. She leans forward, stretching their arms taut and peering this way and that before turning and tripping down the stairs.

They trail along the isle. "Window?" she murmurs, twisting over her shoulder to catch his eye. He shakes his head and she drops into the seat, scooting along and tugging him against her side.

A young guy with a tattered fluro vest slung sloppily over his shoulders clomps along after them, steel-capped boots landing heavy against the metal-edged stairs. He plops into a seat a few rows ahead. He blinks down at his watch and eyes them suspiciously for half a moment before tucking his headphones back into his ears and dropping his head against the window, closing his eyes.

There's a sudden jerk of motion, a whirring, a soft hiss; the darkness blurs orange against the glass outside and Castle exhales slowly. His face splits into a boyish grin and he glances at Kate. "This is like a grand escapade after lurking around the loft all day," he chuckles.

Kate turns to him; she sees the child-like giddiness rushing through him and laughs. She shrugs. "Maybe it will be."

Their fingers lay laced together against her thigh as she watches his reflection in the window. He sits taller, peering around at the few other night-dwellers scattered about, all the rows of space between them. His fingertips drum relentlessly along her knuckles and she smirks at the familiar restlessness of him.

"Kate," he finally cracks.

She turns to him slowly and raises an eyebrow, humming into a question mark to see him grin.

"Where are we going?" He beams, the toe of his shoe knocking against hers as their bodies rock in sync.

She smiles back at him, catches his eye and shrugs. "No idea." She turns her face to the window and takes in the flickering lights against the dark. It's late and her body's getting heavy but _his_ body is lining hers, pressing her against the window and he's smiling like he used to. He's excited and restless and grinning like a little boy. He's always made her forget time.

His body tilts away and she turns back to him. He frowns. He twists over his shoulder, this way and that. He dives back into her and whispers conspiratorially. "We're running away?"

Kate honks, a startled, graceless laugh streaming out of her. He's still frowning at her and her fingers fly to her lips to trap the sound as she blinks up at him with watery eyes.

Finally, he smiles. "Well you said it was going to be a grand escapade." He shrugs and settles back against the seat.

Her thumb streaks out over the length of his. "I said maybe," she reminds, dropping her temple against the window. Everything sweeps by in thin, blurred streams of light and she closes her eyes, her head rocking rhythmical against the glass.

She rests there a moment and Castle's body unravels beside her, loose and sleepy with the motion. "My Mom," Kate murmurs against the glass.

Castle presses closer to her side, instinct and intention both. He battles over the whiplash of the conversation and scans the rattling carriage again, looking for details now, something specific, some story of her hidden here.

She shifts against him, twisting to face him, pressing her back to the window. One finger reaches out to tentatively trace over the knot of their joined hands and he's wide-eyed, watching the innocence and vulnerability in the move.

She blinks slowly, her eyes stay trained on her gliding finger and he can see the memory building up, spreading over her collar bones.

He wants to let her out of it. Suddenly his chest is tight with some strangling thing and he wants to say it doesn't matter, he doesn't always need the story, he'll follow her anyway. He wants to say he's just glad they're going, glad that she's taking him. It never matters where.

The lights flicker, the wheels clack, the story sweeps over her face and he sees then that she's all soft pink. "She dragged me onto a train one day..." She huffs and chuckles. "It was… spring; I don't remember what had happened that particular day but… it was spring, the first time. I remember that clean smell, things blossoming, you know?"

He squeezes her hand and she tips her head back against the window. Relaxed and soft as she crawls though the memory. "She said, _Katie, nobody on the train knows who's driving, so you can let go of the wheel now_."

"That's -" Castle chokes.

Kate's gaze lifts to him. The train lights flicker again, catching the flecks in her eyes. "Yeah." She agrees.

Their bodies lilt forward and drop back into the seat as the train lurches to a halt. The doors hiss open and he hears the faint swell of people milling about, filing on or off, before they tumble back into motion and Castle glances at her. "She," he starts and stops, his throat working over the words.

She tips her head, regarding him silently. His lips purse and she knows he's worried, that whatever it is he wants to say, he's been thinking about it for a while. "She what?" Kate whispers.

Castle swallows thickly. He tugs his sweaty palm away from hers and brushes his fingers through his hair, letting out a sigh. "It's just…" He twists around, finds the carriage empty now outside of the tattered boy with the crackling music. He drops down to a whisper in any case, more for the fragility of the words than the need for quietness. "I miss her." He shakes his head immediately. It's not what he wants to say. Not really, or at least not completely.

"I - " He tries again. His eyes snap shut. It's a mess.

Kate's fingers curl around his wrist and he looks down at her, eyes drooping with apology, pain, so much grief it knocks the air from her lungs.

She knows it's only part of it and she's tense with the need to know now. She wants to know how that ache, the one that she knows so intimately, can be so real in him. "You wish you had met her?" She ventures quietly.

He drops his head, tugs his wrist up to catch her fingers again. Her thumb sweeps over his knuckle in encouragement and he sighs. "No," he says. "Well, yes. But no, that's not… what I meant."

His gaze drifts around the carriage, sets in the middle distance. "I missher," he repeats. He's still testing the words, weighing them up, but that's the truth of it, he knows. That's the terrible, selfish truth of it. "I'm sorry," he gasps, turning back to her and turning away again.

The train squeals to another stop and she takes him in under the still light. His lips pouting in sorrow. "You miss her," she sighs. Her eyes flicker over his profile and it clenches tight in her chest. "Don't be sorry."

He turns back to her, wide-eyed. Shocked. Grateful. Miserable. "Kate," he whispers. He's still just sorry.

A couple of night-guards stumble lazily down the stairs. They sweep their torch beams unnecessarily through the space and make their way along the isle. The tubbier one eyes the two of them for an extended moment and then trundles on, stopping at the tattered boy to check his ticket.

She tugs her palm from his, discreetly wiping it against her jeans and he winces. He wipes his own palm and tucks it away, under his leg as the train jerks on, going… somewhere.

He glances at her briefly and battles to get at the right words. Her brow is furrowed with questions she won't ask now. He knows she won't ask, but he needs to explain.

"It's just, it's the way you are when you speak of her," he says, raking his hand through his hair again. He drops his palm back into his lap in frustration and she curls her pinky through his before he can tuck it back beneath his thigh.

He looks down, to her, away from her. He considers it another moment. "Or, no. It's not that either, its… her."

Kate swallows thickly. Her eyes well up and her pinky curls tight around his.

He can't look. His eyes drift off. Up to the lights, down to the map on the far end of the carriage. He circles and circles the blue line and comes back to the curl of their little fingers. "I'm intrigued by her, you know? Captivated. She sounds so fierce and so soft. So tenacious and righteous and how can that be? I want… I just want."

He sighs like he wants to apologise again but then his eyes shoot back to hers, steely and determined. He forges on as though he's settled on the truth of it now and the words are important, even if they're terrible, even if it's the absolute worst thing to say. He presses on so quickly it startles her. "It's just that she's not someone, not even a type of someone I've known and I have this space for that. For her. I actually feel like I'm missing her. I want so badly to know her and I'm sorry."

Kate chokes on a sob and he turns to her. He goes to reach for her but then she laughs. It's a wet chuckling sound rumbling from her chest and he jerks back. "Kate?" He whispers.

She surges into him. She smacks a kiss to his cheek and flops back into the window. "You… you're right. God, you're so right about her. You would have loved her." She stops, sighs, "she would have loved you."

Her eyes meet his and she reaches out. She grabs both of his hands and drags them onto her thighs, toying mindlessly with his fingers. Her smile stretches out. "She was a disaster," she whispers with such awe, such reverence, in her voice.

He smiles, shaking his head. He doesn't understand. He flips his palms beneath hers and rakes his nails down the centre of her life-lines, urging her on.

Her eyes flutter closed and she hums, dropping her head back against the window. "She was this intense catastrophe of every human thing. She was beautiful and disastrous and…" she murmurs up to the ceiling and pauses, searching for the right thing.

Her eyes drop back to him and she smiles. "You know those hazy patterns of sunlight in the mornings?" She asks.

His fingers still at the base of her wrist, his bright face falling into a frown. "Yeah?" He says, squinting to keep track of the conversation.

"Yeah," She nods. "She was that - soft light."

Castle's mouth falls open. Soft light. It's such a gentle, beautiful thing. He's stunned, open-mouthed and soft-eyed and staring at her, completely breathless. She too, is soft light.

Kate eyes close on a slow blink. She tips forward with the body of the train and presses a chaste, soft kiss to his slack lips. "I miss her too," she whispers.

"I know," Rick sighs. He slips an arm around her shoulders and tucks her into his body. "I know."

She settles against him, one hand curling into his shirt as she listens to the steady beat of his heart against the clacking scratch of the train.

"So where did she take you?" Castle finally whispers down over her forehead.

Kate hums. "Anywhere. That's the thing about trains, Mom said, nobody knows who's driving, where they're taking you…" Her eyes are getting heavy, blinks stretching out as her head lolls against his chest and her words slow, "you just trust that you'll get off at the right place."

His breath stutters in his chest. She feels it wash through a beat of his heart beneath her cheek and he presses closer to her, feels her body going limp in his arms. "Kate," he murmurs, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head, "how do you know when to get off?"

She sighs, her warm breath seeping through his shirt and warming the tender skin around his scar. "You'll know," she mutters, slack lips pressed against him.

Castle tenses. He tugs her up, away from his body and holds onto her shoulders. He waits for her neck to hold taut and her eyes to clear, dipping down to catch her gaze. "Me?" He whispers.

A sleepy smile spreads over her lips. She nods. "Yeah, Castle, _you_. You'll know."

He swallows thickly. He gazes out the window. Lights. Still, it's only streaming lights. He flicks his eyes back to her and there's a steadiness to her gaze that was drowned by exhaustion mere moments ago, there's an unwavering trust that closes his throat. He looks out the window once more and nods, slowly. "Okay," he sighs.

He curls his arm back over her shoulder, tugs her into his body and rests his cheek over her head, settling. "I'll wake you when it's time."


	19. Chapter 19

A static buzz fizzes through the carriage, a man's cracked voice, half-asleep and drawling over the radio. He can't make out the garbled sounds and there's no focus in the string of lights, still blurred orange against the glass.

"Kate," he finds himself whispering, fingernails trailing her arm, dropping down to circle her elbow.

She hums against his chest, a soft throaty sound and he hesitates for a moment, feeling the whole weight of her body and wondering if he ought to just stay, circle and circle with her until the sun rises to take her from him again; but as the train slows and a grey-wash concrete station moves into shifting focus, he squeezes her shoulder, gently lifting her weight. "Beckett," he tries, because they're running out of time, or at least, it somehow feels like they're running out of time.

Awareness finally jolts through her, leaving her stunned and glaring under the crackling blue-white light inside the carriage. She blinks at him slowly before her face smooths out into a sweet, sleepy smile. "Castle. Hi," she mumbles.

"Beckett," Castle croaks, "Uh." He stares at her, his whole face struck dumb by the way she looks when she's waking.

The train jolts to a stop and he scrambles quickly for her fingers. "Oh," he puffs, tugging her roughly from their seat, "come on, quickly, this is it."

Her body is still warm with sleep, soft and clumsy as he drags her onto the platform. She stumbles over the gap, and he turns, hands curled instinctively around her waist as she slumps into his body and the train hurtles on again, picking up her hair, swathing her in momentarily flowing light before fading out in the tunnel.

They're left, trembling in the abandoned basement of an unknown town, pressed together and breathless in the face of themselves. In the aching possibility and terror of all that they've been building in these moments, borrowed and strung together under the guise of night-time solace. They've squirreled themselves away in pocketed moments, shielded quite stupidly from reality, though they both know with terrible certainty that it will eventually come like a knife.

"Rick," she whispers, fingers tightening in his shirt, frightened and wanting and sorry, waiting for him to move.

He remains silent, watching her fingertips slowly unfurl, the fabric of him sliding from her grip. It floods him with memories. Year upon year of collected moments whiz by him, startling and wicked, until a single ghost digs its teeth into his chest, tearing him open.

 _Kate shivering against a wall of ice, eyelashes flaked with white and him wanting to say here is my hand, my heart, my throat. Take what you need, take everything. Take my life. Here, hide inside me, whatever, just don't go. And her fingers, clenched and trembling and turning limp. And her voice frozen, lost to the blue on something screaming with importance._

He's trapped, wishing they were greater than these moments, hidden in the dark, suffocated by a devil's lottery of near escapes and mounting loss. Wishing they were bigger than desire, wrapping pain around its body like a lover.

"Kate," his voice breaks, the new weight of her name so terrible his throat forgets itself. He reaches out, running his fingers gently across her shoulder, her cheek, over her ear. "Kate, I want -"

"Hey!" A gruff, tired voice echoes down the tunneled, ugly place and they break apart, turning toward the sound. The two of them let out a strangled breath, relieved and sorry for the way they've been wrenched off the edge of something so shiveringly dangerous.

A short, rather portly man, broader front to back than side to side, dressed in a fluro vest comes tromping down the platform, waving his stumpy arms about. "That was the last train folks, you two have to move on," he shouts, coming close enough for them to see his greyed hair and thick eyebrows drooping down to half hide his oddly young eyes.

Kate reaches back, tangling her fingers with Castle's. "Sorry," she smiles, and the stout chap visible slumps, clearly frightful of anything presented to him on the lone night-shift. "We'll head out," Kate assures kindly, tugging Castle along as the man turns back to his holed away guard station.

After a few steps Castle tugs on Kate's hand, stalling their momentum. The station lights begin flicking off at the far end of the tunnel and Castle raises his head, looking at the splotched concrete ceiling. "I wonder what's out there," he stage whispers, turning back down to her with comically wide eyes.

"Oh jeez, Castle," Kate complains, "If you're going to turn this into some X-Files adventure, I'm going home."

Castle beams, eyes crinkling with excitement as he suddenly bounces up on his toes. "Oh my god, that's the sexiest thing you've ever said. X-Files… I didn't even think of that!"

Kate's lips twitch with a smile she refuses to give. She narrows her eyes and steps into him instead, needing the upper-hand before she crumbles with this new, unsteady ground they're somehow treading. "What about when I said," she lifts herself up to whisper in his ear, "salacious."

Castle's body slumps around her, fingers reaching for her hips as she twists and sashays away, hiding her smile. "Jesus," she hears him growl behind her.

She finally hears the quick shuffle of his feet, following, and she turns, ushers him up onto the escalator ahead of her.

"Beckett," Castle whispers, twisting over his shoulder and smiling boyishly down at her, "I'm excited."

Kate smiles, can't help the breathy little laugh that tumbles free. "I know, Castle… me too," she admits.

Castle turns back around, grinning foolishly at the approaching glow of streetlight and the tendrils of cooling air reaching down to them. He flicks his wrist out behind him, excitedly wriggling his fingers for Kate's hand.

A devilish smirk flits across Kate's lips, the seclusion of the space, the hollowed out moments they've strung together and the way he'd said her name making her brave. She reaches up, curling her fingers into his back pocket and holding on instead. Castle gasps, spine going rigid as she chuckles behind him.

[x]

They trundle out onto the street, the air cooler, crisper out here than in the crowded heart of the city. It's deserted. Some barely lit suburb with a scattering of streetlights, string upon string of them burnt out and shadowed. There's a glowing bus stop down the street, the only break in a line of darkened trees across the road from sleeping apartment blocks with rusted out balcony railings and makeshift clotheslines.

Castle leans out onto the road, cautious as a little boy, as though something may rise up and grab him. He searches both ways, sees the changing lights of an empty intersection at one end of the street and absolutely nothing at the other.

He spins back to Kate, arms folded over his chest as his mouth drops into a pout. "This sucks," he laments.

She almost chokes on his childishness. His whole face is scrunched with malice at the drabness of his surroundings and it makes her smile. It makes her reckless, all caution lost suddenly to the stupid pout of his lips and the whine in his voice. "You don't like it here?" Kate teases, stepping between his feet and lining his body with hers.

His hands curl around her waist like a normal thing, tugging her closer and she presses her smile to his pouting lips. "I hate it," he mumbles against her kiss and she laughs, curling her fingers around his neck.

She sways into him, pressing a kiss to either corner of his lips. "Really?" she hums.

"Really," Castle breathes, though his eyes are closed and his mouth is already dipping down, chasing hers.

She tips away; smiling as his body follows, bending over hers until he's got her spine curled in his palm and her mouth slides over his, soft and teasing. She presses herself back up, straightening them as her tongue trips over the corner of his mouth and he moans, biting at her lip as she rises. Kate pulls back, catching his eye before she speaks in a low purr, "you still hate it?"

Castle grins as his blown gaze roams their surroundings in mock contemplation. "Well," he decides, eyes glinting with mischief, "maybe it's… not so bad."

Kate laughs, all breath and no bite in the sound. "Oh, now it's not so bad," she drawls, swooping in to wipe a kiss over his neck, and then another, "well, isn't that interesting."

"Interesting," Castle breathes, "yes."

Kate hums, curling her fingers around his hips and walking him back until he's pressed against the station wall. She drags the length of her body along his as she pops up onto the tips of her toes, hands splayed flat against the wall above his shoulders as his hands curl around her thighs, holding her up. She skims the tip of her nose over his cheekbone, smirking as his eyes flutter closed, and presses her lips to his ear. "Exceedingly," she agrees, the sound whispering through his hair.

He's on her fast, hands clenched at her waist and body twisting until she's pressed to the wall and he's towering over her. She looks up, stunned and worried to find him so breathless. She presses a palm against his chest, the other curled over his hip. "Rick," she words, sorry for letting them unravel when she knows it's a dangerous thing. Sorry for knowing she could take his breath, and taking it.

He swoops down and kisses her hard before she can stop him, before she can sooth his body with her hands, her breathing, before she can plead with him to slow his heart down, to be careful with it. He kisses her and she sighs.

His hands leave her waist, flattening against the wall, his broad shoulders caging her in and she moans deep in her throat at the press of his body. She drags her palm down his chest and his muscles ripple beneath her fingertips as she trails them along his torso, fingers finally curling into the waistband of his pants and tugging his body closer on instinct. He grunts and pulls back, breathing hard as he stares down at her, savage but alive.

"How about now?" She pants, reaching up with her free hand to swipe at his swollen lips as she wonders, a little painfully, if this is the reason she came to him tonight. If this is how she needs him, the hard press of his still healing body and that intoxicating blankness in his kiss, his hands, the way he always sways into her. She wonders if he'd still call it hiding in a relationship if it is with a man that she loves, if it's him and they're running away together. Would he still tell her she deserves to be happy? Is this what fear really looks like?

It takes a moment for the words to settle and his gaze to clear. He leans his hips further into her, pinning her in place as her feet slide further apart and the bricks graze at her spine. He twists over his shoulder, scanning the length and silence of the street before turning back to her. "Best. Place. Ever." He growls.

Kate tips her head back, months of stacked up grief and every thought flooding from her in a sweet, fluttering laugh. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "How surprising," she drawls, beaming when his smile twitches, spread too wide. She presses her fingertips to his sternum and nudges him back. "Alright, Mulder, let's go," she says, her voice still a little breathless.

Castle steps back, tugging at her wrist to pull her from the wall. "Go?" he questions, "where?"

"Where?" She parrots incredulously, squinting at him. "Mr Castle, are you saying you brought me out here, to the centre of middle-fuck nowhere, without a plan?" she teases, tugging out of his grasp.

"Okay, firstly, I like it when you talk dirty like that, Detective," Castle starts, smiling as she attempts to glare at him in the dim light. "And secondly... what?" he squeaks. He steps toward her, smiling when she squares her shoulders against him. "You," he challenges, poking a finger to the middle of her chest and squinting back at her, "brought _me here!"_

"Ex _cuse_ me?" Kate squawks. She dips her chin, staring at his finger still pressed accusingly to her chest and then lifts her glare to him, smirking as he pulls his finger away and tucks it into his pocket like he's afraid she'll snap it off. "I seem to recall you dragging me off a train and claiming _this is it,_ " she drops her voice back down into a goofed version of his deep tone just to see him twitch.

Castle coughs, clearing his throat and surprising her. "Right," he nods. He tips back out onto the street, looking left then right before turning back to her. "That's right, so ah…" he mumbles, as he reaches down to capture her hand.

He smiles down at her, stepping away and stretching their arms taut between them, tugging to tow her reluctantly down the street. "Let's go."

Kate smiles, stumbling after him. "You better be leading me to coffee, Partner," she laughs.

Castle twists over his shoulder and smirks at her. "Of course," he bluffs, entirely lost.

[x]

Castle falls back in line with her, tangling their fingers and pressing his palm to hers, because somewhere between the lines, somewhere in the middle of a promise made on his office floor at midnight, a promise to never talk about it, this is who they've become.

"Oh." He pulls them to a sudden stop and she startles.

She watches him scanning the road, eyes constantly coming back to a set of double red doors set diagonally across the intersection. "I know this place," he tells her, smile widening as the memory begins filtering back in snatches.

"Seriously?" Kate laughs. "Of course you do."

"Yeah," he chuckles, "come on, we're going the wrong way."

He turns them in place and begins plodding back the way they came. They skirt their way back along the darkened, tree lined side of the street. He doesn't flinch, doesn't tighten his grip or press too close to her and pride floods through her at the way he doesn't even seem to notice it tonight. The darkness and not quite silence.

"Where're we going?" She asks as they continue on to the opposite side of the station.

"I told you, Scully," Castle smiles cockily, "coffee."

Kate just rolls her eyes, letting him tug her along silently as he stops every few paces to keep track of whatever memory is leading him now.

They reach a house with a broken fence and Castle grins, turning down the side-street which has, surprisingly, even less working light. "I haven't been to this place in years," he says, pulling Kate a little closer as they go, "but they have those custard and rhubarb twisty things you like."

"You," Kate frowns, slowing them a little as her mind backtracks and comes loose, "how do you know that?"

Castle huffs, squeezing her fingers in gentle reproach, trying to speed her up as excitement begins to spark. "Your Dad," he starts, turning them left and then left again in a tangle of back streets that continue into darkness, "he called you at the precinct because he wanted you to accompany him to some… wedding or something, and you told him you were no longer seven and wouldn't be bribed with a rhubarb something or other."

Kate is still tracing the memory when he takes the last turn into a steep running street. "Anyway," he says, "your father went without you," he stops to frown at her, letting out a sharp _tsk tsk_ just to make her lips purse.

She shrugs, pokes him in the hip with their joined hands to nudge the rest of the story out. She still can't remember.

"And," he chuckles, plonking down the hill with tired, dragging footsteps, "we had gone out to chase some lead in… I can't remember that part, but when we got back to the precinct he had evidently brought the pastry back with him and left in on your desk."

The memory comes flooding back to her then. A phone call from her father in the middle of the day, the middle of a case, and her laughing at the way he tried to pull the same old tricks he used when she was a little girl and couldn't stand the smell of her cousin's old home some three hours out of the city. Dirty bribes of pastry from the little shop near the house she never wanted to visit. She remembers coming back late, the precinct deserted by hours and the sweet baked smell unmistakable, her father's handwriting scrawled over the top of the brown bag, eaten through with butter. _Missed you, Katie._

Her fingers curl tight around Castle's.

He smiles down at her. "I remember the way you had smiled. You looked so young," he admits, "happy."

She smiles softly back at him, overwhelmed by the simple way he remembers every insignificant detail of her as though anyone would. Beautiful, stupid man.

He blinks at her for a moment before squeezing her fingers, afraid of nostalgia, afraid of losing her to some old version of them that he can't keep up with anymore. "Anyway," he clears his throat, "you like them, right?"

"Right," Kate nods. She brings his fingers to her lips and kisses his knuckles, sighing at the easing smell of his skin.

"Good," he says, pointing down to the bottom of the hill.

Kate follows the line of his finger, gaze settling on a tiny building, glowing strangely in the abandoned night opposite an open but darkened playing-field. The little black building is flowing with warm light, flooding out wide windows like a little lighthouse. It a sweet, bizarre patisserie with curling gold writing catching the light on its overhanging awning - _Pour vous, chérie._


	20. Chapter 20

By the time they clomp into the patisserie Castle's breathing is laboured, each step heavy and echoing but when he presses his palm flat to the base of Kate's spine, ushering her into a seat by the window and turning toward the counter with a soft smile on his face, she goes willingly.

Moments later, dragging at the end of a hushed greeting, Kate hears a thick French accent lift through the space. "Oh my, my, is that her?" She turns to find Castle, red-faced with his hand trapped in the clap of the owner's. He's a short, elderly man with bright eyes despite the hour, his wide, balding head reaching only mid-bicep on Castle.

"Oh," Castle winces, turning to Kate and turning back, "no. That's not her."

His words cut through the sound of Serge Gainsbourg filtering through the quaint shop with its white wired furniture and mismatch floral cushions, hitting Kate square in the spine. It's sharper than she expects, the sting of _that's not her_ , the tightness that some other girl leaves in her chest.

She turns her face to the window, drops herself out there in the darkness and loses touch with the senses left inside. Chin in her palm and watching her breath kiss the glass she sees nothing but darkness in the long moment before the window catches his reflection, shuffling slowly along as his focus stays trained on the high filled drinks he's toting.

"Your pastry is coming, Phillippe insisted on making a fresh batch," Castle says, pushing a wide rimmed yellow mug across the table and plopping into the seat opposite her.

Kate turns to him with a strained smile. "Thanks," she whispers.

Castle's brow crumples and she turns back to the vacant field beyond the glass.

"Beckett," he ventures, scratching at scruff along his jaw, "something wrong?"

"No," she shakes her head, bringing her eyes back to him and angling for casual, unaffected, "so how'd you find this place?"

Castle's face blanches and she thinks it's worse than she imagined, worse than perhaps he remembered. "Actually," she says, holding a hand up between them, "don't worry, it doesn't matter."

Castle twists his hands in his lap, intently watching the way her lips purse, pressing the colour away, the way her eyes flicker over every detail of the tiny space, settling herself. It makes him smile, despite the way he's been disturbed by the story now. "Well," he decides, gnawing at the inside of his lip, "actually, I brought this girl here once."

Kate cuts fierce eyes back to him. "It's… don't worry," she tries to stop him.

He dips his mouth to his straw, slurping at his choc-hazelnut brownie milkshake to hide a smile. "I was in love," he admits.

Kate swallows thickly, eyes flicking back to the window, searching for an escape route and coming back empty. "Must've been some girl," she finally says, eyes tracing her finger as it circles and circles the rim of her mug.

"Yeah," Castle smirks, "still is, actually."

Kate's gaze snaps back to him, brow furrowed. "Really?" She questions, mind filling with circling images of Meredith, Gina, Kyra, numerous nameless beautiful girls.

"Mmm," Castle hums, obviously smiling now, "name's Alexis."

"Castle!" Kate scolds, embarrassed by the jealously only he's ever been able to build, by the fact that he's arrogant enough to know it and craft her into a stupid thing.

He's still smiling. Idiot. Her foot strikes out and he jerks opposite her, hand dropping below the table as he rubs his shin. "Ow, hey," he whines.

Kate glares over the rim of her mug, curling her lips into the warm ceramic. "Shut up," she mumbles, smiling with him.

It's such a silly moment to be caught it. So unusual, because the jealously is no new thing and he of course knows how to build it, has known for years, even before she could face identifying it, but it's the first time he's played it up so overtly, the first time she's lashed out exactly the way she knows he wants.

It's a silly moment, but she's content until she's tugged away. Suddenly her mug hits the table and her eyes widen. "Wait," she says, slapping her palm on the table between them, "did he… oh my god," she laughs, loud and childlike and reddening her face, "he thought I was your daughter!"

Castle glares at her, arms folding over his chest and pressing back in his chair. His jaw tightens, colour draining from his face. "It's not funny, Beckett. It's disturbing!" he laments.

She rakes her eyes over him, his brow so furrowed it's shadowing his face. Truly grumpy. "No," she puffs, shaking her head under amber light, eyes sparkling with laughter, "it's definitely funny."

She looks so beautiful like this. The slash of her cheekbone catching the light and throwing shadowed hollows out beside her smiling mouth, her eyes bright despite her drained skin.

Castle squints at her across the table, annoyed by her beauty; his mouth set is a low pout and eyebrows dropping lower still. The lines around his mouth sharpen unhappily. "Whatever," he grumps.

"Oh my god," Kate bounces in her chair, reaching over the table to slap at his folded arm, completely unaffected by his sullenness. Her smile is a bright thing, uncontrolled. "I look like a teenager!" she squeaks.

His gaze shifts over her, scrutinizing her crinkled eyes and pinked cheeks. "Are you… seriously…" Castle gapes, arms slumping down beside him in disbelief. "You're flattered right now?" He half-accuses, too incredulous to believe himself.

Kate shrugs, chuckling at his petulance. "Oh don't be grump, Castle, you _are_ older than me," she teases, pressing her foot between his and running it up his leg.

"Yes," Castle snaps, glaring at her. He twists left and right, taking in every empty table around them before planting his elbows on the table and leaning into her nonetheless. "But I'm not old enough to be your father, Katherine," he hisses.

Kate guffaws, startled. She tips her head back to catch the laughter rushing out of her, the soft column of her throat catching the sweet light as her hair tumbles over her shoulders. "That's…" she pants, bringing her watery gaze back to him, "what my Dad calls me when he's mad."

He narrows his eyes at her, turning them into vicious little slits that she still doesn't care about. It's annoying him, the stupid way that she's enjoying this. "Ha. Ha. Ha." He deadpans. He sweeps his gaze to the kitchen and back, frowning as though he's attempting some death force manipulation. "Whatever. He is old and has quite obviously lost his sight or mind, or both," he finally grouches.

Kate's smile widens still. "Um… ouch."

He turns back to her and rolls his eyes, biting back the sparks of a smile as his lips twitch. "Oh, don't lie, Detective, we both know your ego is not that fragile."

She reaches across the table, tugging on his sleeve until he lifts his arm and gives her his hand. "No," she agrees, squeezing his fingers, "and neither is yours, you big baby."

Finally, he laughs, eyes bright and mouth settling in a silly grin. "I like it when you call me Baby," he winks.

Kate flicks his hand away, rolling her eyes. "Idiot."

He pouts, bringing pitiful eyes to her and laying his palm back on the table, face-up, pathetically wriggling his fingers. She sighs, slapping her palm back to his but refusing to smile. "I just can't believe he thinks I look like your father," he shrugs, curling his hand around hers.

"I know," Kate smirks, catching a thick lock of her hair between her fingers and tugging it out straight before slowly curling it around and around, exaggeratedly batting her eyelashes at him under the gentle light. "I'm a brunette."

Castle's mouth drops open. He tugs his hand from hers and glares. "Just drink your coffee, Detective," he grumbles.

[x]

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle," Phillippe greets, offering Kate a steaming rhubarb and custard twist, beautifully braided and pressed at the ends. His face looks perpetually cheeky, round cheeks sitting high and puffed pink on his grinning face. She likes him immediately.

She reaches out, taking the plate with a smile. "Merci, Monsieur," she says, French rolling from her tongue like syrup.

Phillippe jerks back, bewildered, turning comically wide eyes to Castle. "Better keep this one tucked under your arm, Monsieur Castle," he smiles, winking at him.

He turns then and pinches Kate's cheek between his chubby, oven-warmed fingers. Kate smiles, feeling suddenly like a little girl at his gesture. He's a grandfather, she realises, remembering the way her own grandfather had built a cheek pinching habit in the later years. She turns to takes Castle's raspberry and chocolate mousse tart from his hand, pushes it blindly across the table and sends Phillippe a wink of her own.

The mischievous little owner stumbles back, hand over his heart and beaming. "Si je étais plus jeune, ma chérie," he chuckles, staggering back toward the kitchen.

"What did he say?" Castle breathes, mouth still agape as Phillippe rounds the corner.

Kate reaches out, placating him with a pat to his hand. "If I were younger, my darling," she grins.

"What?" Castle squeaks. "He's still as brave as ever then," he laughs, shaking his head.

Kate hums, pinching her hot twist and tugging it apart with her fingers. She brings her gaze up and finds him staring, eyes tracing the twirls of sweet steam rising up between them, carrying the incomparable smell of freshly baked pastries. She waits for his gaze to clear, for his smile to settle in place and then asks, "How did you really meet him?"

His mouth twitches up in the right corner and she knows then that it was the truth, that it was Alexis and he was in love. "It was 1999," he says, voice softening the way it always does for his daughter, "her birthday was coming up and I had asked her what she wanted to do. She said she wanted to spend _the entire_ day with me." He digs his fork into his tart, cutting off a small piece and mumbling, "So I woke her up at midnight."

"Castle," Kate groans, though she can't keep the captured sweetness from her voice, "she was only… five?"

He shovels the little piece of rich goodness into his mouth and nods, eyes coming back to her. "Right," he swallows, holding back a moan, "that's old enough to be taught the power of words and the importance of exactitude."

Kate shakes her head, sweeping her hand out between them and letting it go.

"Anyway," he continues, clearing his throat as she doesn't hold back a moan around her own mouthful, "I got her up, left her first present on her bed and went to wait downstairs."

He waits for her to bring her eyes back to him and smiles. "She looked so beautiful, Kate, she got herself ready and came down the stairs and my heart just… died. My little princess," he sighs.

Kate reaches out, sweeping her fingers over his wrist. "Which one?" she whispers.

"Belle," he beams.

"Belle," Kate whispers, so caught in the image of them that her voice peters out. "Oh," she flicks her gaze back to Phillippe, pottering around the counter display, humming quietly to himself, "that's why… the hair," she smiles, flicking at her curls.

"Yeah," Castle chuckles, reaching out the tuck her hair back behind her ear, "we had trouble with the bobby-pins and my fat fingers, but eventually the wig was on and we were out the door."

"Mmm," Kate agrees, fiddling with his fingers on the table. She smiles, trying to hide the pain, but suddenly hurting for who he had to be, for how he had to be everything for his little girl. "They're a pain but they get the job done."

He must see it in the sad line of her smile though because he flinches and she's sorry. "I was still trying so hard, you know? I wanted so badly to be enough," he whispers.

She captures his hand completely, quickly, and tips her head, nodding. "Castle, she's such a great kid," she murmurs, "she's happy and you, you're more than enough." Her lungs suddenly tighten, strangled with conviction and she brings his knuckles to her mouth, kisses him softly. "I promise," she sighs.

He blinks at her, sunken eyes gleaming. He studies her for a moment and she rests steady under his gaze, an endless certainty she's felt for nothing else racing through her. "Okay," he finally mumbles, before turning away.

He sighs as he rakes his gaze through the space, gaining his footing back in the story, and his smile lifts as it fills with memories around him – his daughter's sweet, bubbling laughter and the way she looked at him like he'd done the impossible, like he'd always make the world magic.

"The first thing she wanted to do was eat a princess cake," he chuckles and Kate smiles, squeezing his thumb to urge him on.

He shakes his head at the sorry memory of himself. "So I thought, okay, how hard can it be, you know?" he shrugs, rolling his eyes, "midnight in Manhattan, surely we could get a princess cake, right?"

Kate smiles, nods, though she knows by his posture that it couldn't have gone well.

"Exactly. So we go to a little bakery near home, there's this incredible pink cake, it's beautiful and topped with a crown. Beckett," he insists, pulling his hand from her and stabbing a finger into the table as though she's been infuriatingly arguing with him over this point, whatever it is, as though they're back at the precinct squabbling over some improbable theory that he wholeheartedly believes in, "it had jewels!"

"Um…" Kate's face scrunches, "I believe you?"

His hand goes limp, the breath rushing out of him in irritation and she wants to laugh. "So," he continues, pursing his lips as though this is her fault, "I say, what do you think of this one, Alexis, it looks fit for a princess to me."

"Oh no," Kate gasps, pressing her fingertips to her lips and looking at him sadly.

He glares at her again. "You _know?_ " He barks incredulously.

"I-" Kate stutters, fingers dropping to fiddle with what's left of her twist, "yeah, Belle is… different."

"Ugh," Castle complains, throwing his arms in the air in exasperation. "Well, fine, apparently I'm the only one who didn't know that," he grumbles.

He digs into his tart, filling his mouth and chewing sullenly, avoiding her eyes.

Kate smiles, shaking her head. "Not the only one and I'm sure you made it up to her," she says, tugging his wrist back before he can fill his mouth again, wanting the story.

He huffs at her but gives it up. "We went bakery hopping," he admits, laughing at himself, "and it was hopeless, there were princess cakes everywhere but never the right thing and I was just… I had to get it right."

She wraps her feet around his ankle and nods, watching his body deflate with the contact, the small comfort of her.

"Finally, we end up in a dodgy looking café, the owner is a little eccentric to say the least and I was sure that the brownies would have cheered me up, if you know what I mean," he says, winking at her.

Kate laughs, rolling her eyes at him. "Subtle," she declares.

"Anyway, I was losing it, I almost had a breakdown on the poor guy's shoulder," he laughs, burying his face in his hands. "He didn't say a word, he just went round back and pulled the wall-phone's chord practically straight to get it to me at the counter. I spoke to Phillippe here, and he saved my life."

He looks up and finds Kate tilted toward him, chin resting on her palm and eyes so soft, so swept up in his story it overwhelms him. Her attention, even now, such a beautiful thing it makes him quiver.

He dips his gaze away, prodding at his desert and tipping the raspberry out of the centre. He spears it on the end of his fork, remembering how she'd picked the fruit from Lanie's piece of cake at LT's birthday, the way Lanie had sighed, seemingly resigned to the thievery. He remembers the way he'd been fascinated by the secret intimacy of best friends.

He looks up, finds her watching the chocolate covered berry and rolls his eyes, stupidly happy to know her like Lanie. He holds it up between them and smiles. "Go on then," he says.

Kate blushes but knows better than to question his knowledge now. She leans over the table, wrapping her lips over his fork and sliding the fruit into her mouth. She hums as the little bubbles burst, brilliant sparks of sourness mixing with the chocolate mousse.

Castle's staring, mouth open and fork still poised in the air when she opens her eyes and settles back in her seat. "So what did he make for her?" she smiles, licking the chocolate from her bottom lip.

"Um," Castle mumbles, dropping the fork. He startles at the clatter, jumping back and shaking his head. "Uh- " he clears his throat, frowning as Kate smiles at his buffoonery. "Oh," he says, finally settling his senses as she sips at her coffee, "he was brilliant."

He sweeps his arm out, gesturing toward a larger round table set in the middle of the floor. "By the time we got here, he had set that table with a purple tablecloth, gathered up in places and trimmed gold. He even had the golden candelabra, it was beautiful," he says, excitement making his words run fast.

Kate takes in the table, the golden light of the whole place and the soft music. She can see it all so clearly, pieces of it falling in place from the soft keenness in the way he tells the story. "Perfect," she sighs.

"Yeah," Castle agrees, "and guess what the cake was? It was exactly what she had wanted, I swear to you."

His chest expands and she knows, can almost see his excitement bursting over his five-year old daughter's. "Seriously?" she laughs, "she wanted a book?"

"A book!" Castle exclaims. "Well a book and that rose thing," he amends, beaming with sudden but years old glee, entirely uninhibited.

Kate smiles, seeing something embarrassed behind his smile, his face stretched tight like a ripe plum. "And what cake did you get, Mr Castle?" She prods.

The smile drops from his face, leaving him comically red cheeked and sulking in an instant. He squints back in Phillipe's directions and grumbles. "Seems Phillipe here recognised my name, so he made a book for me too. Hell Hath No Fury, to be precise."

Memories of who they were rush through her, his cocky smile and scruffy jaw, eyes bright with mischief and intended annoyance and her, buttoned up, sharp edged, drowning in misery like a romantic thing. "Huh," she huffs, smirking at him, "so Phillipe is a hardcore Castle groupie then? I wouldn't have picked it."

His face drops further and her brow furrows in confusion. A Castle cake? It's right up his alley.

"Not exactly. The book was being fed into a shredder," he admits miserably.

"Oh," her mouth drops open, hand coming up to trap a laugh that turns to squeak and slips out between her fingers.

Castle stares for a moment, his face set, and then he cracks, smile breaking open and laughter choking out in a breathless wave.

Kate laughs with him, lifting up on his silliness until a lone Pontiac LeMans rumbles slowly by. Its headlights cast her shadow over him, elongated and ominous as it stretches up the wall and folds on to the ceiling as the car cruises down the slope outside. The image of it strikes her hard and she's felled swiftly, slipping sharply of the edge of this sweet delusion. It's a flicker of a moment, her shadow eating him up in darkness, only a sliding strip of a second before the light shifts and he's illuminated in white. Her body suddenly trembles, watching him all lit up but still tipped to the right. Still compensating for the scars she's left on him. She's a dangerous thing and he touches her too gently.

"You're a good dad, Castle," she whispers. He looks at her, smiling softly and she flinches, continuing, "and Alexis needs you -"

His face falls, suddenly stricken with grief and he reaches for her frantically, bundling up her fingers like he'd been waiting, with dread, for her to do this. "No, don't," he chokes. His eyes darken, intense and drained of all else but this moment. "Don't you dare say goodbye, you don't get to just leave me like this," he grits out, voice frighteningly raw, demanding. Knowing.

Kate swallows, her face scrunches in pain. "Castle, please, we can't just-" she tries, but her voice fades out, empty.

"No," Castle grunts. He shakes his head and clenches his hand around hers. "No, Kate."


	21. Chapter 21

"Hands, touching," he sighs, after a long, heavy moment in which Kate won't look at him and he won't let her go. "Sometimes I wish that's how the story began."

She drags her gaze from his white-knuckled grip around her hand, her brow furrowing as she takes in the wistful, lopsided set of his mouth. "Which story?"

Slowly his fingers slacken, shifting to slide gently between hers. He cradles her fingertips in the shell of his palm and tugs her closer. "Ours," he says.

Kate's lips purse, something defensive wanting out at the melancholic set of his shoulders despite the way they got here, despite the way she needs to leave him. "Ours?" she questions too sharply to be fair.

"You, Me," he agrees dully, "don't you ever wish that?"

Kate tugs her hand back, curling both palms around her mug and frowning at him over the rim as she brings it to her lips. She sips up the last dregs of her coffee, cold and bitter by now, and grits her teeth. "I like our story," she replies tensely.

"Oh," Castle gapes. He snatches her fingers again, pulling them to his chest and leaning over the cold edge of the white, twisted metal table toward her. "No, Kate, that's not what I meant. I love our story, I wrote a couple of books about it," he tries to joke.

It falls flat between them and Kate sighs, shaking her head, her hand limp in his. "But you wish you had something else?" she whispers.

He almost misses the question, so mesmerised by the way her curls have fallen around her face and caught the light like a falling, shattered halo. "No," he finally sighs and he looks so small now beneath the hazy light, so defeated. "It's just, you know how every morning our hands touch when I give you coffee and you give me a smile?"

Kate ducks her head but her fingers twitch and curl with memory beneath his. "Yeah," she breathes.

"Well there's this couple, at the coffee shop I go to for you every morning."

His body is trembling now, terrified of her finding enough breath to finish the words that ran out, _Castle, please, we can't just…_ but she's motionless, can only watch him, heart pounding as he drops her hand on the table and gathers up his chair with more strength than she knows he can afford. He rounds the table and pushes his chair in beside hers with a skin-tingling screech against the black tiled floor, twisting sideways so his whole body leans into her.

"I was there the day they met and it was such a simple thing," he whispers to her, pausing to tug at her wrists, twisting her toward him. Her knees slot between his and he wraps up her hands, before leaning in to press a gentle kiss to her temple, such a thrilling, devastating thing to get to kiss her like this. Kate closes her eyes, chest aching. "He bought her coffee, their hands touched, that's it. That's how their story began."

She can't bear to open her eyes, just tips into him, dropping her face to the curve of his neck as her breath hiccups in her tired chest. "So sometimes," he whispers, lifting his palm to smooth over the back of her head, "I just wish it had been us. That I'd bought you coffee and touched your hand and seen you smile on a Wednesday morning."

She pulls back then to catch his eye, and he cringes at the sadness in her brow, in the way her mouth droops in the corners and her skin has turned sallow. "You did," she smiles, though none of the sadness drains, "there have been so many Wednesdays, Castle."

It's more than it sounds, more than either of them intended, but it's there. Even when they weren't whatever they are now, they collected Wednesdays between them like dirty things. They both knew, both turned a blind eye. _Wilful blindness_ , she remembers her father saying, _at law, quite often it is enough to equate to mens rea, the guilty mind, the intent_. They've been doing this for years now, loving each other behind closed eyes, and it's been a disaster, they've both come close to dying for it.

He reaches out, raking his fingers through her hair to tuck it behind her ear and tip her face up to him. "Yes, but don't you ever wish that were it? Don't you wake up and wish it were Wednesday again?" he questions timidly.

She only frowns and he sighs. "Kate, what I'm saying is I wish it could've been that simple. Hands touching. I wish I'd never hurt you. "

It all swells up it him. _It's about your mother's case. I know you hid inside your mother's murder and never came out. School's funniest kid. School's funniest kid. School's funniest kid._ _J_ _osh know about this? Plucky Sidekick. Partner then. Nowhere relationships. Men you don't love. I love you._ He's dizzy with it.

She sucks in a swift breath and his head dips but she's already there, catching his chin in the curl of her palm and lifting him back to her, curling her other palm over his cheek so gently it hurts. "Castle, no," she implores, "no, you didn't-"

"Kate," he cuts her off, because even now it feels like it' s over. He sighs when she refuses to let his face out of her hands, cutting his eyes away and quietly admitting, "I wish you didn't have to look at me the way you're looking at me now."

She's breathless with his sorrow, terrified of the costs of her love but she tightens her grip over his jaw and tugs him into a hard, grieved kiss. Open mouthed and aching. "Rick, listen to me," she pleads as she pulls back. "The only thing I wish is that _I_ didn't hurt _you,_ " she whimpers. One hand slides down to rest over his heart, the pulse thin and thready beneath her palm. "Wednesdays are good," she admits, mouth quirking in a sad but honest smile, "but I wouldn't trade in the other days. I promise you, there are no regrets."

"No," he gasps, socked in the stomach. He kisses her back, curling a hand around the back of her neck. "No. You can be sorry that I got hurt," he says, tipping back to catch her gaze, pressing her hand more firmly to his chest and waiting for her slow nod, "but don't you dare suggest that _you_ are the one who hurt me."

She meets his eye, watching his gaze drop to her quivering lips. "Castle, that bullet-"

"No, Beckett!" He snaps a little harshly, shivering like a scared afterthought. He leans in to kiss her stunned mouth, lips gentle in apology and she sighs as he trips to the side, pressing a soft kiss to her cheekbone, her temple, leaning into her ear. "You said there are no regrets, Kate," he whispers. "You promised."

Her hand comes up to curl around his ear, tugging him into desperate hug as her heart loses track of a few beats and knocks back into timid rhythm. "No regrets," she chokes, though she'll never heal from the way he's hurt himself for her.

Her phone vibrates against the tight confine of her pocket and his hand drops to her thigh. "Kate, I lied, I do have one regret," he groans, curling his hand over the rattling thing as his nostrils flare.

Kate chuckles, stunned by the way he rescues her without even knowing. She gently peels his hand away and reaches her fingers into her pocket to tug the phone out. "Interruptions?" she questions knowingly.

"Interruptions," he grumps, shifting to let her go.

She catches him by the shirt before he can make to pull his chair back and kisses him breathless before tipping her forehead to his shoulder in sheer exhaustion, so tired of their willful blindness, their mistakes, the stupid way they love each other like wounded dogs, limping and panting dumb.

"Beckett," she answers as his hand trails soothingly down her spine and he tips his cheek to her head, his smile stretching against her hair.

"No regrets," she hears him sigh against her.

[x]

She presses in beside him, perched awkwardly on the middle hump in the back seat as their taxi trails through the long clear streets, unnervingly aware of the affect the driver's presence has on Castle, even now. His body is tense beside hers, breath puffing out a little faster now that the lifting glow of the city is glittering on the horizon.

He turns to her, runs his palm down her thigh and squeezes at her knee, waiting for her to meet his eye. "We could just keep going," he says, voice pinched.

They crawl through a puddle of lonesome streetlight, the only circle left burning on this stretch of road, and he catches the way her jaw slackens, her eyes close. She shuffles closer still and whispers, as they drop back into darkness. "What do you mean?"

He presses his cheek to the cold window for a moment, watching the stars shift and blur. His face scrunches as he traces them. "I don't want to go back to the city," he admits with a strange sense of calm.

Her spine goes rigid, a selfish sense of need rushing through her, but she reaches out and curls her fingers over his thigh, body tipping into his side very gently. "Okay," she reluctantly sighs. A moment of silence passes and she bites back her selfish desire to keep him close as his body seems to soften with relief against her. "Maybe you're right, some time away from the city might help you. Why don't you go to the Hamptons for a little while? Do you think Martha could go with you?"

"What?" he gasps. His body suddenly loses rhythm, chest heaving with panic and knocking her back. "No," he pants, vehemently shaking his head, "no. I'm not," he sucks in a long but shallow breath that rushes out of him almost immediately, "I'm not leaving you."

"Castle, hey," she breathes, twisting awkwardly to put herself in his view. His unfocussed gaze settles on her but his body trips on, too rapid breath being dragged in and spilling out quite uselessly.

The taxi driver twists over his shoulder at the commotion. "Ma'am, everything okay back there?" he grumbles, eyes widening when a slash of light from a passing car catches the back seat, illuminating his passenger's ghostly face and heaving chest.

The man's gruff voice jolts through Castle and Kate grimaces, morbidly glad to know that at least he's still here, at least he can still hear at all.

"Yeah. Can you just pull over for a moment?" she replies, eyes still trained on her wheezing partner.

The cab slows to a stop under a swell of streetlight and the driver twists over his shoulder, his face softening as he takes in Kate's watery gaze, the way she's got a hand curled in the man's collar, holding on. "I'm going to have a smoke," he mumbles, stepping out of the cab. He moves to swing the door shut behind him, but much to Kate's surprise, he tucks in it close to the latch with barely a sound, and walks quietly around the corner.

"Castle," Kate whispers, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning into the space of his gaze. "Castle, listen to me. I need you to breathe for me, okay?" Her voice is gentle like the touch of a mother, calm and smooth despite the way her heart is jerking. It's not new, of course, the startled shift of his body and the way his gaze goes blank, but his jowls are strained with anger and he's trembling in a way that's more terrifying than losing him to memory.

"Rick," she tries, when he doesn't respond. "You've got to relax, please just breathe for me," she pleads, reaching down to pull his hand to her chest, trying desperately to regulate her breath into an easy pattern for him.

Like an instinct sparked by the warmth of her body he curls his fingers into the space between the buttons on her blouse, short fingernails scraping over the swell of her breast and sending a short, sharp current through her stomach.

He tips into her wordlessly, resting his forehead against her collarbone and following the rise and fall of her chest as Kate tips her head back, blinking back tears as his breathing begins to slow. She runs her fingertips down the back of his sticky neck and sighs, "That's it, just keep breathing."

Her small frame shoulders his weight with a slight quiver and she sighs, unsettled by the way her body has grown so accustomed to holding his this way. The sound of his breathing echoes through the tight space as they sit, grounded together and her throat tightens. "It might be safer," she whispers, realising too late that it's a mistake.

His body shudders violently and he reaches out, hooking an arm around her waist and tugging her up onto his lap. She squeaks, stunned by every sudden spurt of his strength, by the quick, shocking reminders of just how dangerous a man he could be and how fiercely he gets to her. She tumbles onto him, knees sliding to either side of his thighs, crushed against him in the tiny space and curling down from the fabric ceiling.

"Kate," he chokes, banding his arms around her waist in a vice that leaves her breathless.

He shivers beneath her and she curls around him, both arms tugging him closer, bound around his shoulders and neck. "God, Castle, I'm so sorry," she murmurs against his ear, debilitated by grief. This is what loving her looks like. "I'm so sorry."

He pants into her skin and the rhythm of her breathing follows in stupid, hiccuping waves. He presses a wet kiss to the base of her throat. "I'm not leaving you," he insists hoarsely.

Kate pulls back, heart-brokenly running her thumbs beneath his reddened eyes as his hands clench and unclench at her waist before trailing softly over her hips. She shivers with the contact, body quivering with heightened pain and need. "Castle," she croaks, cutting her gaze out the window as reoccurring anger zips hot up her spine. "They shot you," she implores, tripping her eyes back over him as she curls her fingertips around his ears. His fingers clench at her thighs and she clenches her teeth, jaw tight with something feral. "I'm not going to run from this fucking dragon, not now, not after what they did," she growls.

He watches the colour drain from around her mouth, her pupils dilating despite the steadiness of the dim light filtering through the glass. She's a beautiful weight over him, but terrifyingly disconnected like this, driven by a raging thing that breaks his heart. "Fine," he sighs, "then I'm going back to the city."

Her eyes drift down to him, and her body turns heavy in his hands. "Castle, I think it might be a good idea-"

He lifts his hands, squeezing suddenly at her waist and jerking her forward, an unsubtle reminder of power. "I am not leaving you," he growls, chest tightening as he tips forward and nips at her collar bone, anger making his bones ache.

She feels the stubborn swell of love turned anger that makes her sick in the bruising points of his fingertips, draws air through her teeth as he nips angrily at her skin. The unwavering stand he takes beside her, it'll get him killed. "Rick, please-" she starts but he cuts her off.

He kisses her mouth hard, tipping her back until she's pressed against the driver's seat and mewling as he bites at her lip in reproach. He twists, lifting the whole weight of her and tossing her unceremoniously onto the seat beside him in a move that's so dangerous for his body she wants to slap him.

"Fuck," Kate puffs under her breath, stunned and staring at him breathlessly. He's twisted away from her, broad shoulders angled against her as he stares disdainfully out the window, breath huffing out in fuming bursts against the glass.

She jerks as he reaches over blindly and roughly tangles her fingers in his without sparing her a glance. "Let's just go," he says sternly, gaze tracing the movement of their driver as he hesitantly trundles back to the car, peering in at them before gingerly sitting in his seat and twisting toward Kate.

He nods toward Castle. "He okay?" he asks, voice thinned out compared to the rough timber he'd greeted them with. He's a large man, weathered and a little dirty with the hours of the night, a thick, untidy beard hiding most of his face and lips.

Kate swallows thickly, squeezing at Castle's fingers and blinking slowly when they maintain their tight but cold hold around hers. "Yeah, um…" she loses the thought, the lie, whatever she had been preparing for this total stranger who had been kind in a way she quite unkindly had not expected.

The man nods, twisting back in his seat and buckling in. He catches her eye in the rear-view mirror and his beard flattens like his lips might be pursed. "It's okay," he says quietly, though his hardened voice carries low and heavy, "I got two sons in the army." His eyes flicker over to Castle and he sighs, shifting his sympathetic gaze back to Kate. "It gets better," he assures, before quietly pulling out into the street and fixing his gaze pointedly ahead of him in an act of privacy that most wouldn't consider as big a kindness as it feels to Kate now.

[x]

His body sinks heavily in the sticky leather seat as they cruise through the boroughs, adrenaline and anger and fear leeching from his body and leaving him sickly with weariness. "Kate?" he whispers, sighing when she only nods quietly beside him. "Can you please call the boys back, tell them to meet us at the loft?"

"No."

He shudders, twisting toward her. A large milk truck sweeps by - a hint of the time they've squirreled away - and floods her in a sweep of light. Her eyes are steely in a terrifyingly disregarded way and he knows then that she'll die for this, that she's angry enough to justify the stupidity of it in her broken mind. "Kate," he starts, intending to reason about life with her gently, but he's too shattered. "I need you," he admits quite gruffly instead, realising that it's a variant of the same in any case.

Her eyes widen but she shakes her head and he thinks it might be over. "I don't know what they've found and you... I don't want it to hurt you," she admits quietly.

The breath rushes out of him. It's a much kinder thing than he was expecting and he realises, belatedly, how unfair that is. "I need to sleep," he sighs, turning his gaze back out into the approaching lights, too tired to apologise though he knows he ought to.

"Exactly," she states, voice rough. "I'll drop you off, you'll sleep, and I'll meet the guys at my place. I'll fill you in later, Castle, just me. The boys and I, we're a team but we're… it's been a long day, a long night for everyone, and Espo and I, we're not handling each other well and Ryan's tired. I just think…"

He's exhausted and aching and afraid. Afraid of everything, but mostly her. Mostly of what she's capable of and the way the boys will back her, the way they'll all burn for this together and alone. He's afraid of her, awake and dreaming. Frustration creeps up his neck and he scratches at it on his skin. "I need you," he repeats miserably, dropping his head to the window with a sudden thump.

Kate grimaces, hand smoothing over his slumped shoulders in a move so intimately instinctual it make her stomach burn. She swallows thickly as the pieces settle in place, the way his body slumped like it's more than just the stand. "Nightmares?" she whispers.

He shrugs, a one-sided self-deprecating thing, and his lips scrunch in one corner. "Probably," he admits, his voice low and hollow, hot breath misting and disappearing in a fist against the window. "I don't know, really, because I've just been running off with you every night." He turns to her then, eyeing her sadly, "Pretty cowardly, huh?"

Kate eyes glisten momentarily in the passing light before she ducks her head despondently. She twists her fingers in her lap and then raises her head, catching his eye and warning him resolutely, with a grave sense of bravery that makes him sad, "Don't make this into something it's not. This isn't just some… we're not just… I'm not hiding."

He takes in the pinch of her mouth, the sour way she's looking at him and he's sorry. Between the lines, it was another awful, misdirected thing to say, he knows. Everything is aching, burning with a fierce pain that is bordering terribly unkindly just on the edge of numbness. "Kate, I'm so tired," he admits in a whisper, eyes drooping as he reaches out to cup her cheek in apology, "I just want to go home."

She swallows thickly, cheek pressing softly against his palm in a smile so solemn he wonders if they'll ever be untinged by this grief again. "Okay then we're going home," she whispers back, sliding her palm down his thigh and curling her fingers over his knee, "I'll call the boys."


	22. Chapter 22

The sharp clack of her heels seems crass against the stillness of the loft and she winces, lifting up on her toes, balance gained with three fingers at the base of his neck as she trails into his office behind him. He flicks his desk lamp on, lifting the room in a dull swell of gold from the cold purple glow of pre-dawn.

The room is musky, the acrid smell of stale whiskey mixing with the sweet, dusty smell of his book-lined walls making her head ache behind her eyes. She toes off her shoes, pressing her palm to Castle's shoulder to nudge him into an armchair and pads over to the window. She wrenches the heavy pane up with a jarring, stuttering squeal and cringes. "Sorry," she whispers as it clicks into place and a cool wave of city-thick air spills through her hair.

The muted sounds of the street filter up into the room, distant sirens and the rumble of scattered traffic. She presses her fingertips against the glass, breathing in the smoggy air with sick relief.

"You'll have to close that before you leave."

She swivels toward his gruff voice, the thin wispy ends of her hair billowing out around her chin and the always burning city lights catching her golden edges. She tilts her head, resting her weight on her palms as her fingers curl around the open windowsill behind her.

"I can't," he admits miserably, mostly buried in shadow.

She comes to him then, her skin smooth in the dull light as she dips down to the rake the hair from his face. "Make sure you remind me," she agrees before leaning in to kiss him gently. It takes like pity.

She pads back to his desk and suddenly every noise seems harsh and grating in his skull. The clink of stained, sticky mugs and the scratching roll of his whiskey bottle lid tightening beneath her fingers.

She gathers up a pile of crinkled papers, pressing her palm to them and smoothing down his scrawled, drunken words before opening his top draw and slipping the whole painful stack inside. Then she turns back to him, moving toward the kitchen with the bottle and dirty mugs in hand.

"What are you doing?" He grumbles, voice stripped raw as his body begins pulsing in tired pain.

"The guys'll be here soon," she whispers back, still moving out of the room.

A flashing security light from the building beside his lifts up in its periodic blue, glinting off the half-empty bottle in her hand. He swallows hard, everything raw inside him. "Want to have a drink?" he roughs out.

One mug twists precariously in her hand as she turns her wrist, squinting in the mostly darkness to catch the time. "Sun will be up soon," she says, by way of avoidance.

Castle smiles, but it's not the beautiful thing she usually sees, it's pained and hollow and strange – a contortion of his face. "You never drink in the daylight, Detective?"

The empty mugs feel heavy, sagging against the crook of her fingers and the smell is stale and sour. She looks at him blankly. "As a rule," she agrees, nodding and leaving him in silence as she trails out into the darkened kitchen.

A scathing thought occurs to him in her wake. _She doesn't kiss me in the daylight either. As a rule. Maybe it's all about poison._

By the time she comes back his head is hung uncomfortably, slipped off the back of the armchair and sagging ghoulishly against his shoulder. His mouth is open, eyes closed, chest heaving sluggishly. She touches a hand to his cheek and he shudders like waking. "Why don't you go to bed?" she whispers.

"Huh?" He grunts. "No," he shakes his head, awareness coming in more starkly now as he shrugs out of her touch and shifts grumpily away.

His side twinges with pain and a reverberating twitch pulls at his face. He sucks in a swift, pained breath and Kate's hand is back on his face, turning him toward her. "Castle," she tries gently.

He jerks away from her. "No," he snaps, brow falling into a scowl and Kate steps back.

She folds her arms over her chest and breathes out so slowly it seems to echo. "Well, can you at least take some pain killers, or something?" She asks, keeping her voice trained low.

His shoulders hunch in reaction, mouth drooping into an annoyed pout. "I have to take 'em with food."

"Okay," Kate grudgingly agrees, making to move back toward the kitchen, "I'll make you something."

Castle hauls himself up with a loud groan, staggering a moment and then pulling his spine straight. He steps into Kate's path, cutting her off and thrusting a hand out behind him. It lands square on Kate's chest and roughly shoves her back. "I can do it myself," he growls, limping away.

For a moment she's breathless before anger surges up fast and blistering. She launches forward, tosses herself in front of him and pulls him up short. "Jesus, Castle," she hisses, "would you just drop it. Just let me help you."

He rears back and her hand goes instinctively, curling into his shirt to tug him forward, keep him upright. He stares down at her, an animalistic glint to his eyes in the eerie glow of city light. His jaw twitches and she sinks into herself. "The boys will be here soon," he grits, brushing her hand from his shirt and skirting around her.

The kitchen light flicks on, flooding the floor and throwing her shadow out in front of her. She sighs, quietly following the pull of his body as hers turns heavy with grief for him.

His body is trembling with fatigue, fingers shaking as he scrapes up some butter and lays out two slices of bread. She moves in behind him, curling an arm around his waist and tugging his weight into her as she presses a hot, open mouthed kiss where her mouth falls between his shoulder blades. Her other hand skirts from his elbow to his wrist, fingers curling around the knife handle and sliding it from his grip, dropping it to the counter. She turns her face, laying her ear against the back of his heart and breathing out over him. "Okay, I get it. So then let me help until they get here and then..."

"Then what?" his hushed voice booms against her ear.

"Then," she sighs as his fingers slowly curl through the ones she has splayed at his stomach and she holds him tighter, "we go back to normal. They're going to be happy to see you, you're going to be fine and I'm going to be here."

His fingers flinch against hers. "What if I can't?" he rumbles.

Kate curls her free hand over his hip, letting her warmth seep into his chilled skin. "Can't what?" she whispers.

His dips his head, spine arching and heaving under her cheek as he sighs, "Go back to normal? Go back to… without you."

Kate untangles herself quickly, dipping under his arm and slotting herself in the space between his body and the kitchen counter. She slips her hand under his shirt tail, warm fingertips making him shiver as they trail through the coarse hair smattered over his abdomen and chest before her palm curls over his still tender scar. She looks up at him and promises, "I'm not _actually_ asking you to, I just thought - "

He kisses her quietly, the whole weight of him falling into her with exhaustion and bruising the soft flesh of her waist against the counter. She curls her arms around his hips, supporting his body and he sighs, pulling back. "I don't want anyone else to see me like this," he murmurs against her cheek.

"I know," she whispers, curling her fingers behind his ear as her body bows out under his weight, "but they won't think any - "

He pulls himself up, hands curling at her hips and when she meets his gaze, there's so much worry welling up in his eyes she almost cries. His hands clench around her bones. "They trust me, Beckett," he says, so much insistence in his voice it's making him growl.

Kate swallows thickly, confused, and then curls her fingers around his elbows, trying to remind his grip to be gentle. "What?" she murmurs when his hold loosens.

He drags his palms down her thighs, wiping his sweaty palms on her jeans and moves to step away but Kate's fingers curl into his waistband, tugging his weight back over her. "Of course they trust you. What are you talking about?" she presses, tipping up to peck a kiss to his chin, his lips, begging for truth.

His hands curl over her shoulders, tipping her back so he can catch her gaze. "They trust me with _you_ , Kate. They let me be your partner," he insists.

"Oh, Castle," she sighs. She leans against his hold, drops into him when his worn-out arms slacken under the pressure and kisses his neck. "They're not going to take me from you," she whispers there.

He shakes his head, chin knocking into her crown. He doesn't believe her, but he runs a hand gently over the back of her head, smoothing her hair down. "I have to be your partner, Beckett. When the boys get here, okay?" The words rumble in his chest, vibrating against her weary body and she pulls back.

She touches her fingertips to the purpled skin beneath his eyes, waits for them to open again and look at her. "You're always my partner," she smiles.

He wraps his hands around hers, holding her fingers away from his skin and frowning. "Kate," he insists, eyes and voice darkening.

Kate swallows. "Okay," she promises quietly, leaning in to kiss his mouth and then ushering him around the counter to sit at a stool.

[x]

By the time the boys arrive, Castle's meds have kicked in but his body is still aching dully and they're both weary with emotion and fatigue, sitting in his office armchairs and watching wan rays of sunlight as they beginning to glitter in a thick swish at the edge of the city's horizon.

The boys are faring worse in a way she quite selfishly wasn't expecting. They're disheveled and sagging with tiredness when she slips the door open, a shocking appearance that startles her into stillness. Their faces like strangers.

"You look like hell, Boss," Ryan blurts, voice gravelly with rotten hours.

Kate winces. She screws up her lips, rakes a hand through her hair and squints at him. "Thanks, Kev," she huffs as she pulls the door wide and ushers them in.

Ryan blushes, giving her a shy, nervous smile, but Esposito's gaze trails over her thinned-out body, hung in crinkled day-old clothes and lands on her bare feet. His eyes cut to his own shoe-clad feet and he looks to her, raising a lazy eyebrow.

"Oh, I didn't want to make too much noise," she admits with a nervous chuckle.

Esposito's eyes widen. "Little Castle is here?" he hisses.

Kate nods, pointing at the stairs behind them. "Sleeping, so…"

"Right," Ryan whispers back, creeping further into the loft, following the trail of light to Castle's office.

Their reunion begins far more subdued than she had expected, and perhaps it is in deference to the hour, to the thick calm of silence that blankets the loft and the sweet way the boys have always softened themselves for his daughter, but in any case, it's painful to see them all so fragile and shaken. She sees Ryan brighten at the sight of Castle, watches through the cracks of the walls as the two of them grin boyishly at each other and then Ryan leans in happily, feeding the birds with Castle and settling into the armchair beside him, relieved.

Esposito stiffens at the threshold and Kate stumbles into him. He turns at the collision of their bodies and stares her down. Kate trembles a little under his scrutiny as his eyes screw down into suspicious slits. His shoulders curl in like a sniffer dog uncertain of a scent it's caught, tail between its legs and ready to howl. "Everything okay, boss?" he whispers.

Kate's throat works over nothing. "Yeah, good. Everything's fine," she lies. They're fragile too, she realises when her heart beat slows and her skin crawls cold. "Are… we okay?" she murmurs.

"Yeah," Esposito gets out. He twists over his shoulder, something loosening in his spine as he watches Ryan pitch forward with quiet laughter between the shelves. "We always are, aren't we?" he mumbles, turning back to Kate and tugging his face into a lop-sided smile.

"Right," Kate nods, chest tightening with sorrow relief as she gestures for Espo to move into the office.

He stands too close to her, his face entirely blank as he rakes his eyes over Castle. He's buried his hands in his pockets, and despite the way Ryan is smiling now, suddenly it's Esposito who looks like a small boy, afraid of his own strength, of hurting people and making a mess of things.

"Hey Espo," Castle nervously mumbles, "good to see you, man."

Esposito's face twitches, his whole body tipping closer to Kate's side in such heartbreaking restraint that Kate, for the first time, wants to sweep her hand over his thick shoulders. "Javi," she whispers instead.

It jerks him forward. "Yeah," he coughs, stumbling forward to shake Castle's hand, "been a while, Bro. How you doing?"

Castle's eyes cut to Kate where she's moved to lean against his desk. She looks to Esposito and back, mouth set in a thin line as she shrugs. Castle swallows, cutting his eyes back to Espo and shrugging too, aiming for nonchalance. "Driving my family crazy, cooped up in the loft, but otherwise I can't complain," he lies.

Esposito's lips twitch with something so close to mirth Kate's heart clenches and runs wild. "Maybe they'll call in Iron Gates to straighten you out," he smirks.

Castle grins, eyes widening. "Seriously, the new Captain's really that bad?"

Esposito and Ryan share a look, both their faces blanching. Ryan shudders dramatically. "Worse!" They exclaim in horrified unison, turning to glare at Kate when chuckles behind them.

Castle smiles as Esposito drops down onto the arm of Ryan's chair gracelessly nudging his partner aside. "You guys think she'll like me?" He tries, angling for charming despite the pain, remembering faintly Kate's choked and laughing _"No"_ that night his voice had come back to him on this very floor.

Esposito's head tips back, his mouth open wide to the ceiling with mirth as he grabs at Ryan's shoulder to keep him upright. Rough, rumbling chuckles fall from him and even like this, contorted and struggling for breath, he's so much more the man Kate knows him to be, his face less strange now than it has been for weeks. "God, no, Bro," he splutters, "it's gonna be like watching you and Beckett when you first started parading your ugly mug 'round the precinct."

Ryan trembles with half-contained laughter, twisting around to slap the back of a palm to his partner's shaking bicep. "Remember when she arrested him for pretty much being a pain in the ass?" he wheezes and Esposito's smile blooms.

"Bro," Esposito shakes his head, squeezing a hand over Ryan's shoulder in preparation, "remember when she cuffed him to the car and when we came out the building the guy's bare toes are out in the world and he's got his shoe in his hand, running down the damn street."

"Hey!" Castle suddenly protests, though he's smiling too, his voice rising to a squeaking whine of affront, "I had to use my toes to grab the… the thing," he huffs, waving his arms at the boys and frowning.

Ryan rears back, twisting to grimace at Kate before turning a disgusted look on Castle. "Gross, Man, I hate it when people use toes to do finger things!"

Castle's mouth twist like he might be disgusted too but then he barrels on, "well I don't care okay, cuff me once shame on you, cuff me twice -"

"Nah, Bro, I've got the best one," Esposito cuts him off. He cuts his eyes to Beckett and smiles something real and powerful before turning back to Ryan, "Remember when we legit thought she'd shot him?"

Castle gasps, fingers flying to his open mouth. "You _seriously_ thought she had shot me? What did you do?"

Ryan and Esposito shrug in unison, their faces blank. "Well Javi said 'Oh shit', and then we turned around," Ryan says.

"And went home," Esposito finishes, the two of them nodding without remorse.

Kate chuckles, burying her face behind a curtain of hair as Castle pouts on cue. He squints accusingly at them and the two boys goes still under his gaze, actors in the spotlight. There's a moment of silence, a standoff, and then they all drop back into snickering laughter at the look on each other's face.

"Dude, remember when that dog bit his ass?" Ryan wheezes and the three of them spill over with pure, untamed and absolutely stupid laughter, their tired faces so beautiful now.

Kate's stomach settles at the sight of her boys, watching them devolve into hysterical laughter at their own foolishness. The strain of everything falling from the three of them in a rush of exhausted silliness as she perches on Castle's desk and they continue on, bouncing absurd and beautiful memories of one another in a painful rush of joy.


	23. Chapter 23

"Every available inch of footage surrounding the fire-station," Ryan says, taking the sleek silver touch-pad from Esposito and flicking a grid of stills onto the smart-screen one by one.

Kate steps closer, unnervingly silent as blood pools ghastly and deep pink in her fingertips where they're hung limply at her thighs, her wrists heavy and swelling with pure exhaustion. Her brow puckers, concentration crystallising her face as her focus shifts sluggishly to each new frame, the sharp edge of her jaw and cheekbones awash in the artificial blue light of the screen. Each still reveals a sliver of what might be a lead, but it's late in the day and the city shadows are looming, hiding the woman's figure in mostly darkness. It's hopeless; a swish of limp hair, a thin, slouched physique and the shadow of a long, loose cardigan with a slit tail and rolled cuffs all that is distinguishable.

"Dammit," Kate growls, "that could be me. It could be anyone."

"We know," Esposito agrees and Kate turns, finds the two of them weakly silhouetted against the insistent new light, the sky painted in soft ribbons of pink and orange as a new day spools to life.

She squints against it. "That can't be it."

"No. But, it might not be much more," Ryan admits. He swings a nervous glance to Esposito but there's only a tick in his partner's jaw and nothing more.

Kate twists back to Castle, pitched forward in his armchair with elbows propped at his knees. He's a sickly yellowish-green in the shimmer of sunrise that's flooding the room, an oily sheen on his forehead like he might puke. He glances at Espo and shrugs.

"Take a look at this," Ryan says, and Kate turns in time to see a grainy video fan out and fill the screen.

After a few seconds of unremarkable street-view - cabs rolling by and a shopkeeper across the street leaning out the door, waving erratically at a string of teenagers skateboarding between his tables out on the sidewalk - the same lean figure rounds the corner, the long end of her cardigan caught in the breeze and twisting at the back of her knees. She's facing the irate shopkeeper, only an extra sliver of her cheek and chin gleaned from the new footage as she bends, unlocking a bike chain and tugging her bicycle from a lamppost at the end of the street.

The footage wavers and shudders before pausing on screen. Kate turns back to Kevin, shaking her head. "I don't - what was I supposed to see?"

"The bike," Esposito answers, stepping up to the screen and drawing his finger backwards, rewinding the video and tapping against the blurry spill of the image to bring it back to life when the bike is in full view.

It seems as unremarkable as the street, a little rusted out at the handlebars, with white paint flaking off beneath the red seat. "It's… old?" Kate questions, squinting at Esposito.

He swallows thickly, the hazy white light from the screen turning half his face ash-grey and drowning the other in a shadow of itself. "No. Well, yes, but that's not it. I've… seen this bike before."

Kate's eyes widen, her foolish heart making them flash with a hope they'd warned her not to have. "Where?" she questions, her voice lifting too full and loud for the still small hours.

Esposito's face turns grim, his lips pursing into an ugly line the way they do when he's about to hurt her. He flicks his eyes to Castle before meeting Kate's gaze. His shoulders square and she braces herself, stepping away from him already. "The cemetery," he admits, his voice gruff and scraping.

Her fingers curl into fists, the bitten, ragged edge of her nails drawing shallow cuts in her palms and her vision whites out in a sharp flash until she feels Castle's palm catch the sway of her body and rock her forward before falling away.

His words tremble behind her. "She was there? This woman was there that day?"

The colour leaches from Castle's mouth, his lips blending disgustingly into his sallow face. He's looming, wide and sweaty behind Kate with her pinched mouth and reddened eyes and Esposito's gut twists with anger. "Not that day," he grits, gesturing for Ryan to switch to the next video.

A sweeping stretch of green and airy blue fills the screen, the edge of the cemetery and a slice of the street swishing past in a mess of colour as Ryan fast-forwards through the footage.

Castle sucks a pained breath through his teeth. Before she can turn for him his fingers curl painfully around her bruised hipbones, blood pooling at the places he grabs for her each time, his fear and anger and pain bursting against her skin.

His body is rigid against hers, his chin digging sharply at the arch of her shoulder as he curls her into his body a little more tightly. "God," he gasps and its sounds like a true prayer. "I'm sorry, I can't," he whispers against her ear.

She curls her fingers through his, stunned to find his skin so cold, clammy, and tugs him closer, resting their tangled hands against her sternum. "I never wanted normal," she whispers fiercely.

The boys are both tipped forward, eyes tripping rapidly along with the winding video as tension ripples through their angled bodies, trained and standing by despite their distance from the scene. They blue swish of sky deepens to an abused purple as the clock flips over. "Here," Ryan says and the video slows to real speed.

The old bike rests carelessly against the fenced cemetery entrance closest to Montgomery's grave, the whole image serene in a way that makes Kate's stomach churn. For a long stretch of quite seconds, the soft, thick breeze catching in the leaves and sending a few floating to the gravelled drive, the four of them watch with no breath. In the distance the same shadowed silhouette comes in to view at the edge of the shot, moving closer. When she reaches the fence, fingers curling over the rusted handlebars of the bike, the dipping sunlight catches her face as she lifts it to the sky, mouthing something to the clouds.

Ryan freezes the video there, zooming into the girl's face, illuminated enough to be recognisable at the distance.

Kate tips forward, Castle's heavy body tilting toward the screen with her and the boys turn to them.

Ryan's eyes widen at the sight of them, hands clasped together, Castle's body wound tight around Kate as the back of his shirt pulls tight and clings to the sweat pooling at the base of his spine; but Esposito's eyes clench, his hands curling into tight fists, knuckles protesting at the strain as he shoves them deep in his pockets and turns back to the screen.

"Um…" Ryan hesitates, awkwardly averting his gaze back to the screen, "either of you recognise her?"

Kate squeezes at Castle's sticky hand, her own palm beginning to sweat beneath his. She twists, checking his face and sighs. "No."

They all stare unblinkingly at the screen, the boy's shoulders slumping in her periphery and it takes a moment for the details to settle in her pulsing mind, her gaze flitting fitfully over the shuddering image until the date-stamp sticks. Only a few days back, she thinks, every hour having bled into the last until time lost meaning.

"Esposito, what where _you_ doing there?" she whispers and the whole room stills.

Javier turns to them, his measured, detached gaze resting on the tangle of their hands before trailing over the hard arc of Castle's shoulders. He meets Kate's eyes, flicking his gaze quickly to Castle and back again when she frowns at him. "I'll explain later," he grunts.

Castle drops Kate's hand, his body straightening out and expanding on a deep breath that she feels against her spine before he steps away, air rushing in cold and brutal where the clinging heat of his body was. "No. Explain now." He demands roughly, his voice lower than he'd ever use with her.

Kate turns, floating uselessly in the space between the two of them. The rush of anger lifts Castle's skin from a sickly pallor to a flushed rosiness, his eyes hard beneath his damp brow. "Castle," she tries quietly, moving to reach for him.

His gaze doesn't waver, pointed resentfully at Esposito over her head as he snarls. "I'm her partner, Detective."

Kate swirls to Esposito, her eyes wide and pleading, skin a strange translucent pink in the still warming sunlight. He lifts a palm in front of his chest, silently easing her back and she finds she goes, sinking heavily into herself.

Esposito's stance shifts, his chest puffs high, shoulders dropping back as his fingers straighten out and plaster together at his sides in military memory. Kate bristles at the sight, remembering the way he'd climbed into his former self and left them all so easily that night in the hospital, standing for hours alone.

When he speaks, his voice is calm and even, kind in a calculated way. His mouth barely opens around the words. "When they pulled us from the war, it was a few months before I opened the door when my old boys came round. We ended up in this dive bar in our old hood. In high school I'd pick the padlock on the back gate and slip in, open up the bar for the boys like I owned it. Anyway, the old barkeep starts tellin' me 'bout the war in his day, how many brothers he'd lost out there and suddenly I was right back there, Bro, right back in the middle of it." He stops, swallowing shame that's been in his mouth for years and locks gaze with Castle. "I wound up behind the bar with the guy's throat in my hand. The boys called the cops, but I didn't go down, and I never went back."

His gaze cuts to Kate like an apology and then back to Castle. "I shouldn't have shown you the video, Bro."

Castle's throat works over nothing, his hands furling and unfurling from fists as he takes another step away from Kate. A sharp line of sunlight slinks between two shadowy edges, creeping across the floor and slicing his body clean in half. "Thanks for the story, but I'm fine," he grits peevishly.

Ryan steps in beside Esposito and Kate nervously watches the strained twitch through Castle's taut thigh, swallowing thickly when a reverberating twitch catches at Esposito's jaw. "Castle, why don't you sit down for a minute?" Ryan suggests gently, eyes trained on Kate for guidance.

Castle stuffs his hands in his pockets, frowning viciously at the boys. "No," he flatly refuses, his voice hung low and dangerous, "just explain. Now."

[x]

Esposito pins Beckett under his gaze. He lifts a hand, pointing at Castle over her shoulder and asks, "He gonna hurt me if I do this?" His voice is hollow but his look so full up with intensity it leaves no room for her to shift around the truth.

It's the first time she's been on this end of his imploring stare and her knees quiver a little under the weight of it. She twists over her shoulder, almost feeling the growl rumble through her partner's chest as he scowls at Esposito. "Um…" she hesitates, tension and torn loyalty stinging in a hot line down her stomach.

"Fine," Esposito nods, not waiting for anything more than her pause. His jaw tightens but his eyes soften a little, voice dropping into something less distant when he looks at her. "He gonna hurt you?" he asks, his entire body humming with protective instinct.

"What?" Kate gasps, vehemently shaking her head as she instinctively steps closer to Castle, pressing in to his space even though he won't reach for her now. "No, never."

Javier regards her for a moment and she goes still under his gaze, the fierce certainty of her life in Castle's hands turning her silent and honest. "Alright," he finally grits out, turning back to the screen and flicking open a new folder.

A mess of photographs fills the screen, imperceptible shifts in angle but all of the same, gruesomely beautiful scene. Montgomery's headstone sits perfectly white against the deep green grass, even in the shadowed light of violet hour.

Castle's vision blurs. He sways dangerously behind Kate, but he can hear Esposito's voice, far away and echoing like he's talking through ice. The images shuffle on screen and his words come clearer, reality melting down to something more tangible.

"I've been re-tracking the scene," he hears Esposito's voice, muffled and booming, "Beckett, it was a good shot. A specific shot. It's how I'll find him."

Kate steps forward, turning to Ryan, and Castle wants to go to her, but he's frozen in place, his feet aching and unreachable. "Did you know about this?" he hears her whispering to Ryan, something desperate and breathy trailing after the words.

Esposito cuts in. "No. Too risky with Gates around. I've been taking the gun," he admits.

Castle's body turns cold. His breathing stops. Everything is bleary.

"From evidence?" Kate gasps, and it looks to him like she's moving so slowly, her body jerking through space as she turns, checking on him and turns back. "Why?" The air support of her voice is gone, the words coming out dry and making his dumb hands want to reach for her,

Esposito's head dips, his gaze cast pointedly away from Kate as the skin at his neck darkens. "Gotta get the details right. A kill shot is like… a signature." Even his words are slowing, in Castle's mind, every sound stretched out like he's trying to shout at them underwater. He raises his head, solemnly looking at Beckett from eyes rimmed dark with grief and disgust. "I could _be_ him, Boss. If the details are right, I could make the shot, I could know his hold of the gun, the tempo of his breathing, the rate of his heart. I'll be him and I'll find him."

The words bubble up in Castle's ears, the skin at the base of his neck prickling with some cold thing as Beckett steps closer to Javier. He steps backs, lifting a paw out to stop her approach like a sorry wolf, warning away its prey. "There aren't that many of us," he expounds, his voice gravelly but measured, "If he saw my shot, he'd find me. I saw his shot. I _will_ find him."

He turns his face to the light, the whole city seeming to unfold against the window, curling beckoning, taunting fingers at him.

"Detective," Kate barks, and the shrill command in her voice rings through the back of Castle's skull, sets his heart racing like his body knows this to be a pivotal moment even if his mind is turning numb. "Why the hell wasn't this put past me?" her voice snaps.

Esposito's shoulders lift as he turns, his body wide and shadowed against the sunlit window. He opens himself up, knotting his fingers behind his back and meeting her only with a detached respect for the chain-of-command. "I couldn't be certain that I would be coming back," he gravely admits.

There's something unreal about the scene before him. Everything is dropped into eerie slow-motion, the room dissolving gradually into chaos in front of him, but Castle feels like it's all on screen. Like he's at the back of a movie theatre, buried in the dark and watching his own life unfolding in front of him. Ryan's voice reaches him long after the movement of his lips registers in his mind, the sharp crack of "What the fuck?" trailing through his head after Kate has already turned to Ryan and pressed a palm hard into his chest.

It knocks Ryan back mid-lunge for his partner and he stares at Kate, wide-eyed and disobedient for a moment that teeters at the zenith of all they've built for themselves. "Stand down, Detective," Kate challenges, and all Castle can notice are her bare feet, the strangeness of her petit lilac tipped toes dipped low in his plush rug as her fingers curl into fits and her body braces itself against her friend.

Ryan drops to his heels, defiance rushing out of him as quickly as it came. He tucks his hands in his pockets and Kate huffs, her toes curling and uncurling against the plush before she turns on Esposito.

She steps into him, face to face and snarling like a rabid hound, so wild when she's hurting. "You've got five seconds," she growls. "Go."

Castle closes his eyes against the blurred vision of her movement, against the twist in his stomach at the mangled sound of her voice. Bile rises high in his throat and he wants to go to her, wants to clasp her hand and say _please, Kate, I can't breathe_ , but the world tilts of is axis, his body sways and he thinks they might all be falling as Esposito's voice carries through his mind.

"Do you remember when you told me 'bout your mother's case, you said it almost consumed you, that going back to it would be like an alcoholic saying 'just one drink'."

Castle opens his eyes, swallowing against his guts as he sees her face fall, her whole body collapsing under the threat of pain in front of them.

Esposito swallows thickly. He looks to Ryan and then back to Kate, admitting with a heartbreaking crack in his voice, "Well I'm a monster, Kate, and I've been going out, standing in a cemetery, saying 'just one shot'."

The room swells on a collective breath and they all step forward, Castle stumbling as his feet come up off the ground. Kate gets a hand around Esposito's elbow and Castle gags silently as he watches the Detective's whole body deflate at the contact, his eyes closing as Kate's fingers dig into his flesh. "Javi, please," Kate chokes, "don't do this. You don't have to do this for us."

His eyes come open. Deep, angrily pools of ink so fierce and determined it's all Castle can see. Every other detail falls away in a blur, Kate's form a sickening swirl of colour and shadow. The Eyes turn to Castle and then back to Kate.

Esposito tugs Beckett's fingers from his elbow, squeezing them softly before letting them drop. "Look what he did to my family," he whispers, and it's like a kill shot; they all know he's going to war.

Castle bites his tongue, coppery blood running down and pooling in the hollow beneath it. His eyes roll, the base of his skull dragging him back, but then the door clicks open, loud and disorienting. Sunlight catches a shimmer of red in his periphery and his brain screams with emergency as Alexis's voice stabs into his gut, _Dad!_

Memory rushes fast and hazy, colour and voices blurring together. _Beckett's down. Dad, no! It's Castle. Castle's down!_ It knocks him forward, knees going limp under him as he stumbles, opening his eyes to Kate.

She's there, the only thing caught in the light, clear and sharp against the revolting swirl of memory around her.

She moves to reach for him, Alexis leaping forward to grab at her father but everything crumbles and blackens out so fast. His shoulder slams hard into her ribs, winding her painfully as her head slams against the floor, vision blackening until all that registers is the dull pain of her ankle twisted under his weight.

When she opens her eyes, Esposito has Castle's hands twisted up behind his back, struggling against the size of her partner as he rages against the hold, still trying to get to her. She sits up, gasping as a searing pain shoots through her chest and her body jerks against itself. Ryan is there, pressing a foot hard against her shoulder and pushing her back down to open her airways.

"Stay down, Beckett, relax," he grunts at her, twisting and straining to corral Alexis as the girl tugs angrily against his grip, tears rushing down her drawn face.

Kate turns her face back to Castle, wincing as she sees his face pinched and twisted in pain as Esposito hauls him up and away from her. "Javi, don't," Kate gasps, dragging in a wheezing breath, "don't hurt him."

Javier tugs him up harder, lifting his body and grunting. "Castle, Bro, it's me. It's Esposito, I'm not going to hurt you," Kate can hear him muttering, but Castle's only looking at her, his face white and contorted as he fights to get at her.

"Kate, no!" Castle wails, getting one hand free from Esposito. He lunges forward, grabbing at her shirt so hard it slide her across the floor and he tugs the material half of her chest as Esposito drags him back. "Kate, I love you!"

The room stills, Alexis slumping back into Ryan's arms as Esposito drops Castle on his knees with a sick crack. "I love you, Kate," he whispers.


End file.
